THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 
OF  CALIFORNIA 

PRESENTED  BY 

PROF.  CHARLES  A.  KOFOID  AND 
MRS.  PRUDENCE  W.  KOFOID 


COMMEMORATIVE    ADDRESSES 


GEORGE   WILLIAM  CURTIS;    EDWIN  BOOTH 

LO  UIS  KOSSUTH  ;  JOHN  JAMES  A  UD  UBON 

WILLIAM   CULLEN  BRYANT 


BY 
PARKE  GODWIN 


NEW    YORK 
HARPER    &    BROTHERS    PUBLISHERS 


Copyright,  1894,  by  HARPER  &  BROTHERS. 

All  rights  reserved. 


Electrotyped  by  Wynkoop  &  Hallenheck,  New  York. 
Printed  by  J.  J.  Little  &  Co.,  New  York. 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

GEORGE  WILLIAM  CURTIS 3 

EDWIN  BOOTH 65 

Louis  KOSSUTH .      .107 

\ 
JOHN  JAMES  AUDUBON 149 

WILLIAM  CULLEN  BRYANT      .      .      .  .      .195 


GEORGE     WILLIAM     CURTIS 


GEORGE    WILLIAM   CURTIS* 


GENTLEMEN  OF  THE  CENTURY  ASSOCIATION  : 

We  are  brought  together  to-night  to  do  hon 
or  to  the  memory  of  a  fellow-member  who  had 
long  prized  and  adorned  our  association — whom 
many  of  you  knew,  and  knew  only  to  admire 
and  love — George  William  Curtis.  He  died  on 
the  3 1st  of  August  last — the  closing  day  of  a 
brilliant  summer — at  his  home  near  the  shore 
of  the  sea  whose  moans  are  now  his  requiem. 

It  is  a  sorrowful  task  for  me  to  utter  the 
memorial  words  you  require,  because,  although 
somewhat  younger  than  myself,  he  was  one  of 
my  earliest  as  well  as  latest  friends,  with  whom 
I  was  for  some  time  associated  in  earnest  polit 
ical  and  literary  work,  whom  I  never  approached 
or  even  thought  of  without  a  glow  of  affection, 

*  Originally  delivered  before  the  Century  Association  of  New 
York,  and  subsequently  repeated  before  the  Brooklyn  Historical 
Society  and  before  the  New  York  Civil  Service  Reform  Associa 
tion. 

3 


m 
4  George     William     Curtis 

and  whose  loss  has  filled  my  eyes,  as  it  has 
those  of  many  others,  with  unavailing  tears ; 
and  yet,  so  vivid  a  personality  was  he  to  me 
that,  knowing  him  gone,  I  cannot,  in  the  phrase 
of  one  of  our  older  poets,  "make  him  dead." 
It  is  almost  impossible  for  me  to  think  that  the 
manly  form  so  full  of  activity,  and  the  attractive 
face  always  aglow  with  light  and  sweetness,  are 
motionless  forever;  that  the  voice  which  music 
itself  attuned  to  the  expression  of  every  noble 
and  tender  human  sentiment  is  still,  and  so 
still ;  that  the  busy  brain  which  forged  for  us 
the  solid  bolts  of  reason  and  built  the  beautiful 
fabrics  of  fancy  has  ceased  to  work  ;  and  that 
the  large,  honest,  and  loving  heart  will  beat  no 
more. 

In  complying  with  your  request  I  shall  offer 
you  no  biography  of  Mr.  Curtis,  for  which  the 
time  allotted  to  my  task  would  be  inadequate, 
and  I  can  only  refer  to  those  leading  events  of 
his  life  which  will  enable  you  to  appreciate  best 
his  character  and  services  as  a  writer,  a  speak 
er,  a  citizen,  and  a  man. 

Mr.  Curtis,  although  a  resident  of  New  York 
since  his  fifteenth  year,  was  a  native  of  New 
England.  He  was  born  on  the  24th  of  Febru 
ary,  1824 — within  that  decade  which  saw  the 
first  gleams  of  a  permanent  American  literature 


George     William     Curtis  $ 

in  the  writings  of  Dana,  Irving,  Bryant,  Cooper, 
Halleck,  and  the  yet  unnoted  Poe — at  Provi 
dence,  Rhode  Island — a  State  where  Roger  Wil 
liams  had  early  planted  the  seeds  of  a  true 
spiritual  liberty,  and  Bishop  Berkeley,  the  friend 
of  Addison,  Pope,  and  Steele,  and  the  founder 
of  an  ideal  philosophy,  had  left  the  traditions  of 
his  presence. 

His  ancestors  on  both  sides  were  of  the  Puri 
tan  stock — not  particularly  distinguished  as  I 
find,  save  that  his  mother's  father,  James  Bur- 
rill,  Jr.,  was  a  Chief  Justice  of  the  State  and  a 
Senator  of  the  United  States,  whose  last  speech 
and  vote  were  given,  a  few  days  before  his 
death,  against  the  territorial  extension  of  slavery. 

It  was  a  good  stock  to  spring  from — for 
those  grim  religionists,  who  burned  witches  and 
Quakers,  had  in  the  old  world  smitten  kings  to 
preserve  liberty,  and  in  the  new,  laid  the  foun 
dations  of  a  democratic  empire  that  now  stretches 
over  a  continent.  That  imaginative  temperament 
which  peers  into  the  unseen,  and  gives  a  mys 
tical  predominance  to  things  of  the  spirit  over 
things  of  the  flesh,  often  blossoms  into  the  love 
liest  flowers.  Certainly  to  it  we  trace  nearly  all 
our  foremost  poets,  from  him  who,  as  a  boy  still, 
sung  our  first  immortal  song  amid  the  snow 
drifts  of  the  Hampshire  hills,  to  him,  our  Quaker 


6  George     William    Curtis 

Tyrtaeus,  who  the  other  day  put  off  his  singing 
robes  to  take  on  a  wreath  of  unfading  laurel. 

Mr.  Curtis's  schooling  outside  of  the  home, 
where  he  was  a  diligent  reader  of  books,  was 
brief  and  scanty  :*  two  years  at  a  public  acad 
emy,  and  one  of  private  tuition  ;  but  his  educa 
tion  was  none  the  less  wide-ranging,  nutritious, 
and  fruitful.  As  with  nearly  all  men  of  genius, 
it  was  a  self-education  and  peculiar.  After  a 
year's  trial  of  a  mercantile  pursuit,  which  proved 
repulsive,  instead  of  going  to  college,  he  hurried, 
with  a  brother,  to  Brook  Farm,  a  small  agricul 
tural  and  educational  association,  recently  gath 
ered  near  Roxbury,  Mass.f  It  was  an  outcome 
of  a  socialistic  wave  rolling  over  Europe  and 
America  at  the  time,  and,  by  its  agitations, 

*  He  attended  an  academy  at  Jamaica  Plains,  near  Boston, 
for  two  years.  His  mother  died  while  he  was  yet  a  child,  and 
the  father  married  again,  and  in  1839  removed  to  New  York 
with  his  family.  His  father  was  cashier  of  one  bank  and  after 
wards  president  of  another,  and  the  lad  could  easily  have  gone 
to  college  if  he  had  wished. 

t  The  immediate  founders  were  the  Rev.  George  Ripley  and 
his  wife,  Charles  A.  Dana,  Wm.  H.  Channing,  C.  P.  Cranch, 
John  S.  Dwight,  and  others;  but  Theodore  Parker,  Margaret 
Fuller,  Bronson  Alcott,  Henry  James  the  elder,  Albert  Bris 
bane,  Parke  Godwin,  etc.,  took  a  deep  interest  in  its  success. 
All  over  the  country,  later,  many  citizens  attentively  studied 
socialism,  among  whom  I  may  mention  one  who  was  afterwards 
distinguished  as  a  soldier  and  statesman  and  as  the  second  of 
our  martyr-Presidents,  James  A.  Garfield. 


George     William     Curtis  7 

stirring  up  a  good  deal  of  foam,  ooze,  and  am 
phibious  drift-wood,  with  here  and  there  a  pearl 
of  the  sea  like  this.  But  it  was  nothing  new  on 
the  face  of  the  earth.  In  all  ages  generous 
minds,  dissatisfied  with  the  actual  conditions  of 
society,  have  endeavored  to  bring  back  a  van 
ished  golden  age  by  a  reconstruction  of  its 
methods  ;  and  the  loftiest  intellects  have  exerted 
their  best  faculties  to  discover  the  Alladin's 
Lamp  which  could  transform  hovels  into  palaces. 
A  man  who  has  not,  at  some  time  of  his  youth, 
been  convinced  that  he  could  lift  society  at  once 
to  a  state  of  universal  prosperity  and  happiness, 
has  more  of  the  clod  in  him  than  of  the  angel. 

These  New  England  reformers  were  tinctured 
by  that  mode  of  thinking  which  was  called 
Transcendentalism,  but  which  was  not  so  much 
a  creed  as  an  emotional  protest  against  the  hard, 
metallic  cast  given  to  Calvinism  by  the  severe 
Puritan  intellect.  But  their  practical  arrange 
ments  were  largely  influenced  by  the  specula 
tions  of  Fourier,  which  had  already  formed  a 
school  in  France,  and  were  widely  accepted  in 
the  United  States.* 

Hawthorne,  in  his  "  Blithedale  Romance  " — a 


*  Nearly  fifty  practical  experiments  under  the  impulse  given 
by  them  were  made,  and  failed  in  the  end. 


S  George     William     Curtis 

fanciful  story  suggested  by  his  own  experiences 
at  Brook  Farm — calls  its  inmates  "  a  knot  of 
dreamers,"  and  dreamers  they  were  indeed,  but 
of  a  beautiful  dream.  They  hoped,  by  means  of 
wiser  and  juster  industrial  and  social  arrange 
ments,  "to  simplify  economics,  to  combine  leisure 
for  study  with  healthful  and  honest  toil,  to  avert 
unjust  collisions  of  caste,  equalize  refinements, 
awaken  generous  affections,  diffuse  courtesy,  and 
sweeten  and  sanctify  life  as  a  whole."*  More 
disinterested  aims  never  animated  a  body  of  cul 
tivated  men  and  women.  The  experiment  proved 
to  most  of  them  merely  a  romantic  episode  in 
their  lives,  but  one  never  to  be  forgotten.  Mr. 
Curtis  for  nearly  two  years  shared  in  their  labors 
of  the  house  and  field,  and  in  their  instructions 
and  studies;  but  was  chiefly  remembered  by  his 
companions  for  his  sprightly  leadership  of  pic 
nics  and  masquerades,  and  his  pleasant  singing, 
after  nightfall,  of  romansas  from  the  operas.  He 
must  have  been  benefited  by  the  influences  of 
that  select  and  gentle  circle,  which  appealed  to 
the  better  tendencies  of  his  naturally  fine  nature, 
and  strengthened  his  interest  in  social  questions ; 
but  while,  in  accordance  with  Schiller's  noble 
advice,  he  always  "  reverenced  the  dreams  of  his 


Wm.  H.  Channing,  in  "  Memoirs  of  Margaret  Fuller." 


George     William    Curtis  9 

youth,"  he  never  became  a  socialist.  His  ex 
periences  there  convinced  him,  if  we  may  judge 
by  his  after- conduct,  that  the  best  way  to  reform 
and  elevate  society  is  not  by  withdrawing  from 
it  to  a  small  coterie  in  a  corner;  but  by  breast 
ing  its  tides  as  they  come,  and  by  laying  one's 
heart  against  the  great  heart  of  humanity — to 
get  from  it  the  best  inspirations  it  has  to  give, 
and  to  return  to  it  the  noblest  ideals  we  can 
impart.  Sects,  parties,  and  conclaves  which  shut 
themselves  off  from  the  broad  currents  of  life 
are  apt  to  dwindle  into  narrowness  and  inanity, 
or,  sooner  or  later,  return  to  the  broad  bosom 
they  had  abandoned. 

A  second  period  in  Mr.  Curtis's  plan  of  self- 
culture  began  when  he  left  the  happy  family 
at  Brook  Farm — not  yet  dispersed  by  the  frost- 
winds  of  a  financial  winter — to  settle  on  a  farm 
at  Concord.  His  aim  was  partly  to  become  a 
practical  agriculturist,  and  partly  to  obtain  more 
leisure  and  solitude  for  study.  He  might  have 
procured  a  more  classical  tuition  in  the  neigh 
boring  halls  of  Harvard  ;  but  he  preferred  that 
open  university  whose  dome  is  the  overarching 
blue,  whose  floors  are  the  enamelled  meadows, 
and  whose  chambers  are  the  sylvan  cloisters  of  the 
groves — shut  in  at  eve  by  crimson  curtains,  and 
lit  up  all  night  by  the  silver  lamps  of  heaven. 


10  George     William     Curtis 

His  text-books  lay  before  him  in  the  locality 
itself,  teeming  with  nutritious  patriotic  memo 
ries.  Every  house  of  the  small  cluster  of  houses 
was  inhabited  by  the  descendants  of  those  who 
landed  "  on  the  stern  and  rock-bound  coast, 
when  breaking  waves  dashed  high  "  ;  the  hills 
around  had  echoed  the  thunders  of  Adams  and 
of  Otis  when  they  roused  the  colonists  to  arms; 
yonder  highway  was  the  road  on  which  the 
hoofs  of  Paul  Revere's  horse  clattered  in  his 
famous  midnight  ride ;  Lexington  Green  was 
but  a  few  miles  off,  and  daily  before  him  stood 
the  bridge  where  the  "  embattled  farmers  fired 
the  shot  heard  round  the  world."  It  is  to  the 
study  of  this  class-book  I  ascribe  his  rare  famil 
iarity  with  our  Revolutionary  annals,  and  his 
intense  but  high-toned  Americanism — an  Ameri 
canism  which,  not  insensible  to  the  grandeurs 
of  Niagara,  the  Mississippi,  the  Rocky  Moun 
tains,  and  the  sea- like  lakes,  where  great  ships 
sail  out  never  to  be  heard  of  more,  nor  un 
mindful  of  that  intelligence  and  brawny  energy 
which  converts  the  forests  and  the  rocks  into 
benignant  human  uses,  yet  finds  its  chief  nutri 
ment  in  those  free  democratic  institutions  which, 
emancipating  the  individual  from  the  fetters  of 
convention,  give  a  larger  scope  than  is  to  be 
found  anywhere  else  to  the  development  of  the 


George     William    Curtis  1 1 

noblest  manhood  and  womanhood.  He  was 
particularly  fortunate  to  find  in  this  open-air 
college  teachers  not  often  to  be  met  with  in 
class-rooms — such  as  Emerson,  the  first  philos 
opher  of  his  time,  who  inwove  with  the  in 
sight  and  poetry  of  Plato  an  insight  and  poe 
try  of  his  own,  with  a  Rembrandt's  power  to 
paint,  and  ears  that  heard  aeolian  harps  in  every 
whispering  wind  ;  as  Hawthorne — our  New  Eng 
land  Prospero — who  evolved  out  of  the  chill 
and  desolate  regions  of  Puritanism  a  whole  new 
world  of  romance  and  fascination ;  as  Thoreau, 
the  woodland  Diogenes  —  Plotinus- Orson,  as 
Curtis  called  him — whose  "  quick  ears  and  sharp 
eyes "  had  caught  the  deeper  secrets  of  the 
forest ;  and  as  Margaret  Fuller,  among  the  most 
learned  of  women,  who  communed  with  ^Eschylus 
and  Dante  and  Boccaccio  and  Beethoven,  and 
aspired  to  ride  in  the  flaming  chariots  of  Goethe 
drawn  by  the  coursers  of  the  sun. 

By  two  of  these  teachers  our  young  scholar, 
just  on  the  verge  of  manhood,  must  have  been 
deeply  impressed.  Emerson  had  already  put 
forth  that  thin  little  volume  on  "  Nature,"  which 
bulges  with  suggestive  thought  as  the  branches 
in  spring-time  swell  with  the  coming  buds.  A 
few  of  his  strange  poems  had  appeared,  whose 
voices  come  down  to  us  from  the  upper  air, 


12  George     William     Curtis 

like  the  rough  music  of  Pan  when  he  pipes  to 
the  winds  and  the  stars.  He  was  even  then 
engaged  with  those  "  Essays  "*  which  have  im 
parted  so  bracing,  stimulating,  and  strengthen 
ing  a  tonic  to  the  intellect  of  the  century,  and 
whose  one  great  virtue,  whatever  their  defects 
and  inconsistencies,  is  to  set  men  thinking  with 
a  desire  to  think  aright. 

Hawthorne  was  also  at  that  time  gathering 
his  "  Mosses  from  an  Old  Manse  " — mosses  that 
in  his  hands  bloomed  into  the  strangest  orchidian 
shapes,  and  an  old  manse  that  rose  on  pillars  of 
cloud — in  many-gabled  towers,  through  whose 
casements  shone  a  moonlight  haunted  by  witches 
and  ghosts,  grim,  ghastly,  and  terrible,  and  yet 
with  faces  as  beautiful  as  any  which  look  from 
the  pictures  of  Stuart  and  Copley.  As  Emerson 
had  a  power  to  incite  thought ;  so  Hawthorne 
had  to  incite  imagination,  but  our  impressible 
scholar,  while  he  admired  the  serene  and  lofty 
tone  of  the  one,  and  the  weird  and  impassioned 
fantasy  of  the  other,  was  inspired,  not  enslaved, 
by  them ;  we  find  some  traces  of  each  in  his 
writings,  but  only  traces  ;  and  no  one  has  written 
with  more  discrimination  of  them  than  he  has 
since  written.  He  wandered  freely  through  their 


*  The  first  series  was  published  in  1841,  the  second  in  1844. 


George     William     Curtis  13 

gardens  of  bloom  ;  he  inhaled  with  pleasure  the 
perfume  of  their  flowers,  he  sipped  with  ecstacy 
of  "  their  lucent  sirups,  tinct  with  cinnamon," 
but  he  cherished  his  own  ideals  of  truth  and 
beauty,  and  turned  away  to  find  them  by 
methods  of  his  own.  As  he  had  not  become 
a  socialist  at  Brook  Farm,  so  at  the  fountain- 
head  of  the  sect  he  did  not  become  a  trans- 
cendentalist."* 

Mr.  Curtis's  residence  of  four  years  in  Europe 
and  the  East  may  be  regarded  as  the  third 
period  of  his  self- culture.  He  sailed  in  l846,t 
and  was  landed  at  Marseilles,  whence  he  hastened 
to  Italy,  and  then  visited  the  greater  part  of 
western  Europe,  and  of  Egypt  and  Syria.  Fruit 
ful  years  they  were  indeed.  As  he  travelled  on 
foot  when  he  could,  or  by  diligence  or  market- 
boat,  he  saw  much  of  the  common  people  in  their 
haunts  and  homes  ;  he  explored  every  quiet  nook 


*  The  reader  will  find  in  Hawthorne  ("  Old  Manse  "),  Lowell 
(article  on  ';  Thoreau  "),  and  Curtis  (Emerson,  in  "  Homes  of 
American  Authors  ")  most  amusing  accounts  of  the  eccentrics 
that  Emerson  attracted  to  Concord — "Apostles  of  the  New 
ness,"  and  preachers  of  various  kinds  of  bran-and-potato 
gospels. 

t  He  was  accompanied  by  our  late  fellow-member — preacher, 
poet,  artist,  and  musician — Mr.  C.  P.  Cranch  and  his  family, 
and  in  the  East  by  his  friend,  and,  later,  brother-in-law,  Quincy 
Shaw.  At  Rome  he  fell  in  with  Hicks  and  Kensett,  also  mem 
bers  of  this  club. 


14  George     William    Curtis 

or  sheltered  valley  or  mountain  -pass  where  beauty 
lingers,  and  every  picturesque  village  or  town  or 
city  which  lives  in  history.  Of  course  he  loitered 
in  the  cathedrals  where  the  twilight  often  breaks 
into  organ  peals  or  Gregorian  chants,  and  the 
galleries  where  immortal  genius  had  shattered 
the  sunbeams  upon  canvas;  he  haunted  the  mu 
seums,  the  theatres,  and  the  opera-houses ;  he  at 
tended  courses  of  lectures  at  Leipsic  and  Berlin; 
and  as  one  of  his  years  was  the  famous  revolu 
tionary  year  of  1848,  he  saw  at  Paris  the  masses 
when  they  go  down  into  the  streets,  and  at  Berlin 
he  heard  the  angry  students  sing  by  torchlight 

"  A  mighty  fortress  is  our  God, 
A  trusty  shield  and  weapon." 

In  1850  he  came  back,  laden  like  a  foraging 
bee  with  sweet  burdens  of  language,  art,  litera 
ture,  scenery,  and  society. 

The  flowers  and  fruits  of  this  rich  European 
harvest  have  left  their  fragrance  and  savor  in  all 
his  subsequent  work ;  but  his  Eastern  gatherings 
he  shared  at  once  with  the  public,  as  a  sort  of 
first-proofs  of  his  apprentice  and  wander- years. 
They  were  two  remarkable  volumes,  purporting 
to  be  books  of  travel,*  and  which,  as  such,  came 


*  "Nile  Notes   of  a   Howadji,"  1851,    and    "The   Howadji 
in  Syria,"  1852. 


George     William     Curtis  15 

into  comparison  with  several  reigning  favorites, 
such  as  the  "  Eothen  "  of  Kinglake,  "  The  Cres 
cent  and  the  Cross  "  of  Eliot  Warburton,  and  the 
"  Eastern  Letters"  of  Harriet  Martineau.  But  a 
comparison  was  hardly  possible,  they  were  so 
different  Those  books  were  books  of  travel 
strictly,  full  of  useful  information  and  the  proper 
sentiments ;  but  these  books  contained  scarcely 
a  description  from  cover  to  cover.  They  fur 
nished  very  little  erudition  as  to  Thothmes, 
Ramses,  or  the  interminable  dynasties ;  they 
deciphered  no  hieroglyphics,  unrolled  no  mum 
mies,  and  penetrated  into  no  tombs  ;  but,  plun 
ging  at  once  into  the  voluptuous  sunshine  of  the 
East,  they  shouted  with  ancient  Pistol, 

"  A  foutra  for  the    world  and  worldlings  base! 
I  speak  of  Africa,   and  golden  joys." 

Their  pages  were  all  pictures  and  poetry — im 
pressionist  pictures,  a  little  hazy  in  form,  perhaps, 
but  radiant  with  color — and  poetry  without 
rhyme,  yet  rhythmical  as  the  song  of  birds  or  the 
dance  of  waves  on  the  strand.  Whatever  was 
peculiar  in  Eastern  climate,  landscape,  or  life,  you 
were  made  to  feel  with  a  vividness  it  never  had 
before  ;  and  even  generations  mummied  ere  our 
civilizations  began  masqueraded  like  a  new  life  in 
death. 


1 6  George     William     Ctirtis 

Nor,  in  the  tumult  and  rapture  of  sensuous 
impressions,  were  the  sacred  traditions  of  place 
forgotten,  and  especially  of  Him  who  hovers  over 
human  memory  as  the  tranquil  sweetness  of  a 
summer  sky  hovers  over  the  landscape.  How 
touching  that  passage  which,  after  forty  years, 
recurs  to  me  as  I  write,  where,  stretched  by 
night  on  the  Syrian  sands,  the  myriads  of  warlike 
hordes  that  once  trod  them  rise  again — Assyrians, 
Jews,  Saracens,  Persians,  Arabs,  Crusaders,  and 
Frenchmen — but,  through  "  the  flash  of  cimeters, 
the  cloud  of  hurtling  arrows,  and  the  glittering 
Roman  axes,"  the  author  sees  only,  subduing 
emperors,  kings  and  sultans,  the  figure  of  One 
who  rode  upon  an  ass,  with  no  sceptre  but  a 
palm-branch,  and  no  crown  but  a  crown  of  thorns. 

These  first  books  gave  Mr.  Curtis  position 
and  even  fame  as  an  author ;  but  they  sadly 
puzzled  some  of  the  critics,  who  complained  of 
their  excesses  of  color  and  sentiment — not  see 
ing  under  the  pomp  of  the  garb  the  keen  ar 
tistic  sensitiveness,  the  opulent  imagination,  and 
the  subtle,  swift- glancing  fertility  of  thought 
which  rendered  that  pomp  both  necessary  and 
appropriate.  But  other  critics  felt  with  Keats, 
on  his  first  reading  Chapman, 

".   .   .   like  some  lone  watchers  of  the  skies, 
When  a  new  planet  swims  into  their  ken." 


George     William    Curtis  17 

They  were  new  in  the  extreme  novelty  of  their 
form  and  matter,  and  they  were  planetary  in 
their  effulgence.  That  ovcrfulness  complained 
of,  like  the  buoyancy  of  youth,  might  be  chas 
tened,  but  not  exhausted,  by  maturity  and  prom 
ised  a  rich  future.  His  next  book,  letters  from 
the  watering-places  to  a  newspaper,  and  called 
"  Lotus-Eating,"  glows  with  a  similar,  yet  sub 
dued,  exuberance,  deluging  our  landscape  with 
"  purpureal  gleams,"  and  seeing  in  the  hotels 
the  same  men  and  women  that  he  had  seen 
when  floating  on  the  canals  of  Venice,  stepping 
out  of  the  canvases  of  Titian  and  Giorgione. 

It  was  at  this  time  (1851-52)  that  I  became 
more  intimately  acquainted  with  Mr.  Curtis,  so 
that  henceforth  I  shall  be  able  to  speak  of  him 
from  personal  reminiscences.  It  came  about  in 
this  wise :  An  enterprising  publisher  of  New 
York,  Mr.  Putnam,  had  projected  a  magazine  of 
the  highest  class,  which  should  take  rank  beside 
the  Blackwoods  and  Frasers  of  the  old  world. 
We  possessed  some  ponderous  quarterlies  like 
the  North  American  Review  and  others,  mainly 
organs  of  religious  denominations,  but  the  maga 
zine  proper  had  scarcely  risen  beyond  the  second 
story  back  of  the  milliner  shops.  It  was  a 
hazardous  undertaking,  but  the  publisher  was 
brave  and  the  scheme  was  carried  into  effect. 


1 8  George     William     Curtis 

Mr.  Charles  F.  Briggs,  better  known  as  Harry 
Franco,  from  a  forgotten  novel  of  his,  was  asked 
to  take  the  helm  as  manager,  and  Mr.  Curtis 
and  myself  were  given  each  a  laboring  oar.  We 
gathered  a  goodly  company  of  assistants  around 
us,  nearly  all  the  known  men  of  letters  of  the 
time,*  and  put  forth  a  worthy  pioneer  of  the 
more  imposing  ventures  of  to-day. 

Mr.  Curtis  was  at  that  time  a  great  favorite 
in  society — not  of  the  fashionable  sort  he  after 
wards  satirized,  but  of  a  higher  grade,  which  had 
historical  pretensions,  and  retained  some  of  the 
old  flowing  colonial  courtesy  and  culture.  His 


*  It  may  interest  those  who  are  curious  as  to  our  literary 
history  to  add,  that  among  our  promised  contributors — the  most 
of  whom  complied  with  their  promises — were  Irving,  Byrant, 
Emerson,  Longfellow,  Lowell,  Hawthorne,  Thoreau,  George 
Ripley,  Miss  Sedgwick,  Mrs.  Kirkland,  author  of  "A  New 
Home  :  Who'll  Follow  ?  "  J.  P.  Kennedy,  author  of  "  Swallow 
Barn";  Fred  S.  Cozzens,  of  the  "  Sparrow-grass  Papers"; 
Richard  Grant  White,  "Shakespeare's  Scholar";  Edmund 
Quincy,  author  of  "Twice  Married";  William  Swinton,  since 
the  accomplished  historian  of " The  Army  of  the  Potomac"; 
Richard  Kimball,  Herman  Melville,  of  "  Typee  "  and  "  Omoo  " 
fame,  Richard  Henry  Stoddard,  E.  C.  Stedman,  Ellsworth, 
Thomas  Buchanan  Read,  Maria  Lowell,  Jarvis  McEntee,  and 
others.  We  had  a  strong  backing  from  the  clergy — the  Rev. 
Drs.  Hawks,  Vinton,  Hanson,  Bethune,  Baird,  also  the  occa 
sional  assistance  of  Arthur  Hugh  Clough,  the  friend  of  Tom 
Hughes,  Matthew  Arnold,  and  other  pupils  of  Dr.  Arnold,  who 
was  then  in  this  country — William  Henry  Herbert,  reputed 


George     William    Curtis  19 

fine  figure,  his  handsome  face,  his  polished  ad 
dress,  his  humorous  talk,  and  growing  fame  as 
an  author,  got  him  easy  access  anywhere,  or  as 
Lowell  has  since  rhymed  it, 

"all  the  chariest  doors 
Swung  wide  on  flattered  hinges  to  admit 
Such  high-bred  manners,  such  good-natured  wit." 

A  few  feared  lest  the  adulations  heaped  upon 
him  should  seduce  him  from  the  student's  smoky 
lamp  to  Paphian  bowers  lit  by  gilded  chande 
liers  and  eyes  more  bright  than  jewels ;  but  they 
knew  little  of  his  native  good  sense,  his  strong 
self-respect,  and  his  broad  sympathies,  which 
would  have  saved  him  at  any  time  from  scorch 
ing  his  wings  in  any  false  glare,  however  flattering 
or  seductive.  He  got  out  of  society,  as  out  of 
everything  else,  whatever  he  thought  to  be  good, 
and  the  rest  he  let  go  to  the  ash- barrel. 

grandson  of  the  Earl  of  Pembroke,  sportsman  and  naturalist, 
known  as  Frank  Forrester;  William  North,  a  frank  and  bril 
liant  young  Englishman  ;  Fitz- James  O'Brien,  who  died  in  our 
war  for  the  Union,  and  Thomas  Francis  Meagher,  a  gallant 
soldier  in  the  same  war,  and  afterwards  Governor  of  Montana. 
Miss  Delia  Bacon,  whose  unhappy  history  is  told  by  Hawthorne 
in  "  Our  Old  Home,"  began  her  eccentric  Shakespeare-Bacon  con 
troversy  by  a  learned  and  brilliant  article  in  the  monthly.  An 
article  by  Dr.  Hanson,  going  to  prove  that  the  heir  to  the  French 
throne,  who  was  supposed  to  have  been  killed  in  the  Tower,  was 
still  living  as  a  St.  Regis  Indian  (the  Rev.  Eleazer  Williams), 
produced  a  great  sensation  both  in  the  United  States  and  France. 


2o  George     William     Curtis 

I  mention  this  to  introduce  a  little  incident 
that  had  a  great  deal  to  do  in  directing  his 
future  course.  Our  first  number  of  the  monthly 
had  been  a  success;  at  least  those  arbiters,  not 
merely  of  all  elegancies,  but  of  destiny  itself — 
the  daily  press — had  patted  us  on  the  back,  and 
we  set  sail  on  halcyon  seas  and  under  favorable 
winds.  It  was  while  providing  entertainment 
for  our  readers  in  a  second  number  that  the 
vivacious  Harry  Franco  exclaimed,  "  I  have  it ! 
Let  us,  each  of  us,  write  an  article  on  the  state 
of  parties.  You,  Howadji,  who  hang  a  little 
candle  in  the  naughty  world  of  fashion,  will  show 
it  up  in  their  light;  you,  Pathfinder,  who  con 
sort  with  scurvy  politicians,  will  say  of  it  what 
they  think;  while  I  will  discuss  it  in  some  way 
of  my  own  " — which  he  never  did. 

But  Mr.  Curtis  and  the  other  person  were 
moved  by  the  hint,  and  the  former  at  once  wrote 
a  paper  on  the  state  of  parties,  which  he  called 
"  Our  Best  Society."  It  was  a  severe  criticism 
of  the  follies,  foibles,  and  affectations  of  those 
circles  which  got  their  guests,  as  they  did  their 
edibles  and  carriages,  from  Brown,  sexton  and 
caterer,  and  which  thought  unlimited  supplies  of 
terrapin  and  champagne  the  test  and  summit  of 
hospitality.  Trenchant  as  it  was,  it  was  yet  re 
ceived  with  applause.  Some  thought  the  name 


George     William    Curtis  21 

of  the  leading  lady  more  suggestive  than  facts 
warranted,  and  that  in  such  phrases  as  "ram 
pant  vulgarity  in  Brussels  lace,"  "  the  orgies  of 
rotten  Corinth,"  and  "  the  frenzied  festivals  of 
Rome  in  her  decadence,"  the  brush  was  over 
loaded.  None  the  less,  the  satire  delighted  the 
public,  and  was  soon  followed  by  other  papers  in 
the  same  vein — since  collected  as  "  The  Potiphar 
Papers."  The  older  folks  acknowledged  them  to 
be  the  best  things  of  the  kind  since  Irving  and 
his  friends  had  taken  the  town  with  the  whim- 
whams  and  conceits  of  Evergreen,  Wizard,  and 
the  Cockloft  family.  They  were  to  some  extent 
exaggerations,  in  which  occasional  incidents  were 
given  as  permanent  features  :  but  their  high  and 
earnest  purpose,  their  genuine  humor,  their  amus 
ing  details,  their  hits  at  characters,  and  their  sar 
casms,  "  deodorized  of  offensive  personality  "  by 
constant  drippings  from  the  springs  of  fancy,  won 
them  great  favor.  If  we  behind  the  screen 
sometimes  felt  that  we  shook  hands  with  the 
originals  of  Kurtz  Pasha  and  the  Reverend 
Cream- Cheese,  they  were,  like  sweet  bully  Bot 
tom,  marvellously  translated. 

All  the  while  Mr.  Curtis  was  flinging  his 
squibs  and  crackers  into  Vanity  Fair,  he  was 
wandering  in  a  wholly  different  realm — a  realm 
"of  ampler  ether  and  diviner  air."  He  was  writ- 


22  George     William     Curtis 

ing  for  us,  from  time  to  time,  papers  of  a  much 
higher  tone  than  any  he  had  yet  written,  and 
which  seemed  to  me,  as  I  sometimes  looked  over 
the  proof-sheets,  to  open  an  entirely  new  and 
rich  vein  in  our  literature.  They  were  those  ex 
quisite  reveries  since  published  under  the  quaint 
title  of  "Prue  and  I."  The  main  conception,  the 
Leit- Motif,  as  Wagner  would  say,  was  as  old  as 
poetry  and  the  arts— the  steeping  of  the  palpable 
and  familiar  in  the  glorious  dyes  of  the  ideal, 
which  children's  fables,  folk-lore,  Middle- Age  leg 
ends,  and  great  poets  have  done  for  us  time  out 
of  mind  ;  but  Mr.  Curtis's  treatment  of  his  theme 
was  quite  fresh  and  original  and  most  captivat 
ing.  His  shabby  old  book-keeper,  in  a  faded 
cravat,  whose  brain  teems  with  visions 

"  Of  all  that  is  most  beauteous — imaged  there 
In  happier  beauty," 

is  one  of  the  most  delightful  of  dreamers.  He 
roams  not  in  the  fabled  world  of  ancient  poets, 
peopled  with  oread  or  dryad  fleet  or  naiad  of 
the  stream,  nor  in  the  world  of  more  modern 
fancy,  whose  forest  depths  and  fields  and  foun 
tains  teem  with  fairy  shapes  of  peerless  grace 
and  cunning  trickeries ;  but  his  caprices  revel  in 
a  sphere  of  their  own,  whence  all  rude  neces 
sities  are  banished,  and  gentle  passions  and  sweet 


George     William    Curtis  23 

longings  for  the  serene  and  joyous  and  perfect 
reign  alone.  These  are  the  Ariels  with  which 
he  rides  on  the  winds  and  plays  on  the  curled 
cloud.  How  quaint  is  that  touch,  worthy  of 
Elia,  where,  going  back  to  his  boyhood,  he  tells 
how  he  visited  the  wharves  where  the  foreign 
ships  come  in,  and  returning  home  with  a  smell 
on  his  clothes,  was  chided  by  the  good  mother. 
He  says:  "I  retired  from  the  maternal  pres 
ence  proud  and  happy.  I  was  aromatic.  I  had 
about  me  the  true  foreign  air.  Whoever  smelt 
me  smelt  distant  countries."  With  what  a  royal 
hospitality  he  sallied  forth  from  his  cold  beef  and 
cabbage  to  the  avenues  and  squares  .where  pros 
perous  citizens  were  going  to  dinner,  and  furnished 
their  tables  more  amply  than  those  of  any  em 
peror.  How  the  ladies  in  the  gilded  chariots, 
superb  and  sweet,  each  one  his  own  Aurelia, 
seemed  "  fairer  than  the  evening  air,  clad  in  the 
beauty  of  a  thousand  stars,"  while  he  lent  to 
them  a  tongue  like  Perdita's,  and  the  music  of 
St.  Cecilia  herself.  Could  anybody  resist  an  in 
vitation  to  his  castles  in  Spain,  which  "  stood 
lofty  and  fair  in  a  luminous  golden  ;atmosphere, 
a  little  hazy  and  dreamy  perhaps,  like  Indian  sum 
mer,  but  where  no  gales  blew  and  there  were  no 
tempests.  All  the  sublime  mountains  and  beau 
tiful  valleys  and  soft  landscapes  were  to  be  found 


24  George     William     Curtis 

in  the  grounds.  From  the  windows  looked  the 
sweet  women  whom  poets  have  painted,  and 
bands  of  celestial  music  played  all  night  to  en 
chant  the  brilliant  company  into  silence."  Mr. 
Franco  and  his  colleague  of  the  triumvirate  used 
to  look  forward  to  these  delightful  papers  as  one 
does  to  a  romance  "to  be  continued  ";  and  when 
we  received  one  of  them,  we  chirruped  over  it, 
as  if  by  some  strange  merit  of  our  own  we  had 
entrapped  a  sunbeam.  We  followed  the  lines  so 
intently,  with  such  various  exclamations  of  pleas 
ure,  that  a  stranger  coming  in  might  have  sus 
pected  both  of  us  to  belong  to  that  wonderful 
company  of  eccentrics  which  the  old  scrivener 
summoned  from  the  misty  realms  of  tradition — 
the  Wandering  Jew  ;  the  priests  of  Prester  John ; 
the  alchemists  who  sought  to  turn  base  metals 
into  gold ;  the  hunters  of  El  Dorado,  of  En 
chanted  Islands,  of  the  Fountain  of  Perpetual 
Youth ;  the  makers  of  Utopias  ever  looming  up 
and  ever  vanishing ;  even  our  own  Captain 
Symmes,  who  sails  through  his  hole  into  the 
interior  of  the  earth,  where  its  jewels  and  pre 
cious  metals  are  forged  ;  and  that  famous  friend 
of  our  childhood,  the  Baron  Munchausen,  whose 
signal  claim  to  a  place  in  a  fictitious  world  was 
that  he  was  the  one  most  replenished  liar  out  of 
all  the  thousand  millions  of  humans — and  brought 


George     William     Curtis  25 

them  all  together  on  the  deck  of  the  Flying 
Dtitchman,  to  sail  forever  through  foggy  seas, 
onward,  onward  to  unknown  shores.* 

It  was  an  evidence  of  the  fecundity  and  ver 
satility  of  Mr.  Curtis's  gifts,  that  while  he  was 
thus  carrying  forward  two  distinct  lines  of  inven 
tion — -the  one  full  of  broad  comic  effects,  and  the 
other  of  exquisite  ideals,  he  was  contributing  to 
the  entertainment  of  our  public  in  a  half-dozen 
other  different  modes — monthly  criticisms  of 
music  and  the  drama  that  broadened  the  scope 
and  raised  the  tone  of  that  form  of  writing ; 
rippling  Venetian  songs  that  had  the  swing  of 
the  gondola  in  them;  crispy  short  stories  of 
humor  or  pathos ;  reminiscences  of  the  Alps 
taken  from  his  Swiss  diaries  ;  elaborate  reviews 
of  books,  like  Dickens's  "  Bleak  House,"  the 
Bronte  novels,  Dr.  Veron's  Memoires,  Hiawatha, 
and  recent  English  poetry — including  that  of 
Kingsley,  Matthew  Arnold,  Thackeray,  the 
Brownings,  and  Tennyson — which,  written  forty 
years  ago  have  not  been  surpassed  since  by 
more  appreciative,  discriminating,  and  sympa- 


*  There  is  something  similar  to  this  in  Hawthorne's  "A 
Select  Party,"  where  Funnyman  asks  the  Oldest  Inhabitant, 
Monsieur  On  Dit — the  Clerk  of  the  Weather,  Davy  Jones,  the 
Man  of  Straw,  and  others  to  a  banquet  in  his  palace — which  is 
more  diverting  perhaps,  but  less  imaginatively  pathetic. 


26  George     William     Curtis 

thetic  criticism,  even  in  that  masterly  and  more 
elaborate  book  of  our  fellow-member,  "  The  Vic 
torian  Poets."  In  addition  to  these,  he  gave  us, 
from  time  to  time,  solid  and  thoughtful  discus 
sions  of  "  Men  of  Character,"  of  "  Manners,"  of 
"  Fashion,"  of  the  "  Minuet  and  the  Polka  "  as 
social  tide-marks,  and  of  "  Rachel,"  which  may 
still  be  read  with  instruction  and  pleasure  for 
their  keen  observation,  their  nice  critical  discern 
ment,  their  cheerful  philosophy,  and  their  en 
trancing  charms  of  style. 

Then,  ever  and  anon,  Mr.  Curtis  would  be  off 
for  a  week  or  two,  delivering  lectures  on  "  Sir 
Philip  Sidney,"  on  "The  Genius  of  Dickens," 
on  "The  Position  of  Women,"  and,  in  one  case, 
a  course  of  lectures  in  Boston  and  in  New  York 
on  "  Contemporary  Fiction."  In  a  galaxy  of  lec 
turers  which  included  Emerson,  Phillips,  Beecher, 
Chapin,  Henry  Giles,  and  others,  he  was  a  bright 
particular  star,  and  everywhere  a  favorite.  A 
harder- working  literary  man  I  never  knew ;  he 
was  incessantly  busy;  a  constant,  careful,  and 
wide  reader;  yet  never  missing  a  great  meeting 
or  a  great  address  or  a  grand  night  at  the 
theatre.  From  our  little  conclaves  at  No.  10 
Park  Place,  where  I  fear  we  remorselessly  slaugh 
tered  the  hopes  of  many  a  bright  spirit  (chiefly 
female),  he  was  seldom  absent,  and  when  he 


George     William    Curtis  27 

came  he  took  his  full  share  of  the  routine — un 
less  Irving,  Bryant,  Lowell,  Thackeray,  or  Long 
fellow  sauntered  in,  and  "  that  day  we  worked 
no  more." 

We  now  approach  a  wholly  different  phase  of 
our  friend's  activity — less  agreeable  than  the 
others,  but  more  important,  and  a  phase  which 
shows  how  brave,  manly,  and  noble  he  could  be 
in  the  face  of  the  most  alluring  literary  and 
social  seductions.  Up  to  the  time  of  his  joining 
us  in  Putnam  he  had  taken  no  part  in  politics. 
Like  his  friends  Lowell  and  Longfellow,  who  had 
written,  the  one  "  Biglow  Papers,"  with  a  fervor 
that  almost  raised  a  slang  into  a  classic,  and  the 
other  "  Hymns  of  Slavery,"  which  brought  tears 
to  the  eyes — though  tears  have  never  yet  rusted 
away  the  chains  of  the  captive — he  was  intensely 
anti-slavery  in  feeling.  But  his  opinions  had  not 
yet  crystallized  into  definite  shape.  So  far  as 
he  had  any  politics  at  all,  they  were  a  general 
acquiescence  with  the  Whig  school  as  interpreted 
by  Seward,  who  was  still  a  watcher  of  times  and 
seasons.  Like  all  scholars,  he  felt  what  Milton 
has  described  as  "  an  unwillingness  to  leave  the 
quiet  and  still  air  of  delightful  studies  to  embark 
on  a  troubled  sea  of  noises  and  harsh  disputes." 
Yet  he  was  one  of  those  who  thought  that  a 
man  of  letters  had  something  else  to  do  in  this 


28  George     William     Curtis 

world  than  to  sing  love-ditties  to  Amaryllis  in 
the  shade,  or  paint  pretty  pictures  for  the  cul 
tured  classes. 

Be  that  as  it  may,  it  was  impossible  for  a 
man  of  genius  and  soul,  at  that  day,  to  resist 
the  great  ground-swell  of  popular  passion  fast 
coming  to  the  surface.  Those  years,  from  1848 
to  1860,  were  years  of  revival  and  resuscita 
tion,  when  the  American  people  began  to 
breathe  again  the  invigorating  air  of  their  early 
days.  Let  me  recall — at  least  for  those  too 
young  to  remember — how  tangled  and  terrible 
our  political  condition  was,  and  how  it  had 
been  brought  about. 

Our  fathers  had  deliberately  founded  this 
nation  on  the  great  central,  pervasive,  and  dis 
tinguishing  idea  of  right  as  transcending  inter 
est,  and  of  equal  popular  rights  as  the  origin, 
the  basis,  and  the  aim  of  all  good  government. 
Yet  they  had  allowed  the  nation  to  carry  in  its 
flanks  a  monstrous  evil,  in  flat  and  disgrace 
ful  contradiction  of  its  fundamental  principles. 
Their  excuse  was  the  belief  that  free  institutions 
would  inevitably  work  out  its  speedy  extinc 
tion.  But  that  hope  was  a  delusion.  Slavery, 
instead  of  yielding  to  the  influences  of  free 
dom,  struck  its  roots  deeper  into  the  soil,  and 
began  to  stretch  forth  its  dead- man's  fingers  to 


George     William     Curtis  29 

the  heart-strings  of  the  people.  Claiming  a 
constitutional  guarantee,  interwoven  with  vast 
commercial  interests,  fortified  by  inveterate  prej 
udices  of  race,  it  grew  so  rapidly  in  power  that 
it  soon  assumed  to  control  conventions,  dictate 
policies,  elect  congressmen  and  presidents,  and 
prescribe  opinions.  The  South  was  riding  the 
nation  as  the  Old  Man  of  the  Sea  rode  on  the 
shoulders  of  Sindbad. 

Then  came  those  days,  "  never  to  be  recalled 
without  a  blush,"  when  the  politicians  bowed 
down  to  it  as  to  an  idol,  and  worshipped  it ; 
when  the  counting-houses  fawned  upon  it,  that 
thrift  might  follow  fawning ;  when  the  Press  dec 
orated  its  hideous  brows  with  wreaths  of  praise, 
and  even  the  Pulpit  wove  around  it  the  sanc 
tions  of  Holy  Writ.  The  panting  fugitive,  guided 
by  the  North  Star,  fled  from  bloodhounds  and 
deadly  morasses,  and  came  to  our  homes  to 
beg  for  refuge ;  we  were  told  to  return  him  to 
bondage — and  we  did  it.  Our  virgin  territories 
— the  homes  of  a  vast  future  civilization — - 
whose  soil  was  yet  unwet  by  the  blood  of  the 
bondman,  and  its  dews  unstained  by  his  tears, 
were  claimed  as  the  rightful  abodes  of  the  curse 
— and  we  acquiesced. 

Of  course  these  atrocities  provoked  reaction. 
Side  by  side  with  the  black  stain  in  our  his- 


jO  George     William     Curtis 

tory  ran  a  line  of  white  which  brightened  and 
broadened  each  day.  Individuals  protested,  even 
when  they  were  killed  for  it ;  small  sects  re 
membered  that  Christianity  was  a  gospel  of 
brotherhood,  not  of  hatred ;  the  Abolitionists 
made  their  frantic  appeals  to  the  moral  sense  ; 
Liberty-men  resorted  to  the  ballot-box ;  Con 
science-Whigs  undermined  the  old  Whig  Party 
as  Free-soil  Democrats  were  undermining  the 
old  Democratic  Party  ;  but  as  yet  they  were  all 
working  apart  and  at  loose  ends.  Traditional 
prejudices  and  mutual  misunderstandings  kept 
them  asunder.  Many  of  them  even  hoped  that 
the  dispute  could  be  compromised  and  the  con 
flict  adjourned. 

Our  little  world  of  the  Monthly  was  pro 
foundly  stirred  by  these  agitations  of  the  outer 
world.  For  the  first  time  in  the  history  of  our 
higher  periodicals,  its  managers  had  stepped 
down  from  their  snowy  pedestals  to  take  part 
in  the  brabble  and  scuffle  of  the  streets  ;  and  it 
raised  an  almost  universal  outburst  of  vitupera 
tion  and  censure.  As  Lamb  said  of  his  play, 
"  Great  heavens,  how  they  did  hiss  !  "  For  a 
time  it  seemed  as  if  the  little  bark  was  destined 
to  go  down  amid  the  roaring  and  foaming  rocks.* 

*  It  happened  while  Mr.  Curtis  had  been  ministering  to  the 
delight  of  our  readers  in  many  ways  and  receiving  showers  of 


George     William     Curtis  31 

The  offence  and  the  service  of  the  Monthly, 
speaking  the  sentiments  of  large  and  increasing 
classes  of  literary  and  professional  people,  was, 
that. while  the  old  parties  shilly-shallied,  it  had 
steadfastly  and  stubbornly  insisted  that  no  con 
ciliation  between  the  free  and  the  slave  States 
was  possible  or  desirable.  The  conflict  was  an 
irrepressible  conflict.  Our  political  system,  in 
bringing  together  under  the  same  rule  two  in 
compatible  forms  of  civilization,  had  yoked 
Pegasus,  the  winged  horse  of  the  gods,  to  a 
drudge  ox,  and  they  would  not  and  could  not 
pull  together.  There  was  but  one  thing  to  do, 

applause  in  return,  that  another  one  of  the  triumvirate,  taken 
by  Mr.  Franco's  suggestion,  had  written  his  version  of  the  state 
of  parties,  and  called  it  "Our  New  President."  It  was  a 
criticism  of  Mr.  Pierce,  who  had  recently  been  elected,  not  for 
Democratic  depravity  in  general,  but  for  the  reckless  license  he 
had  shown  in  distributing  the  sacred  trusts  of  office  to  a  parcel 
of  heelers  and  hoodlums,  whose  only  desert  was  that  they  had 
voted  the  regular  ticket,  and  stood  ready  to  mangle  and  maul 
any  one  who  did  not  join  with  them  in  that  ceremony.  This 
article  raised  a  fierce  outcry  of  opposition ;  but  Commodore 
P.utnam,  though  he  had  values  on  board,  was  a  brave  soul, 
and  said,  "  Brace  up,  my  lads  !  Put  her  head  one  point 
nearer  to  the  wind  and  crowd  on  sail!  " — which  we  did  ac 
cordingly — but  without  appeasing  the  north-westers.  A  suc 
cession  of  papers  on  "Parties  and  Politics,"  perhaps  more 
vcrjuicy  than  juicy;  on  "Our  American  Despotism,"  meaning 
slavery;  on  "Kansas — It  Must  be  Free";  and  "The  Two 
Forms  of  Society,  Which?"  only  aggravated  the  original  scream 
of  protest  into  a  fierce  howl  of  rage. 


32  George     William     Curtis 

in  the  actual  condition  of  things,  and  that  was 
for  the  friends  of  freedom,  of  every  name  and 
description,  to  sink  their  party  differences,  to 
unite  in  a  new  party — to  nail  the  glorious  de 
vice  of  "  Free  soil,  free  speech,  free  men  "  to 
their  banners,  and  march  to  victory.  "  But 
oh  !  "  cried  the  timider  souls,  "  that  means  civil 
war  !  "  "  And  if  it  does,"  was  the  reply,  "  never 
strike  sail  to  a  fear  !  Come  into  port  grandly, 
or  sail  with  God  the  seas." 

Events  soon  brought  about  the  consummation 
so  devoutly  wished.  Free-minded  Whigs  and 
free-minded  Democrats  and  others  joined  hands 
in  1854-55,  to  form  the  new  Republican  Party, 
and  in  1856  designated  the  young  Pathfinder  of 
the  West,  who  had  nailed  the  flag  of  freedom  on 
the  highest  peaks  of  the  Rocky  Mountains,  to 
carry  it  in  triumph  to  the  Capitol.  That  auspi 
cious  union  filled  older,  perhaps  wiser,  certainly 
more  conservative,  minds  with  terror  and  dismay ; 
they  heard  only  "  ancestral  voices  prophesying 
woe,"  and  saw  Spectres  of  the  Brocken,  that 
seemed  to  rise  like  demons  from  the  pit.  But  to 
younger,  perhaps  more  visionary,  minds  it  seemed, 
to  use  De  Quincey's  phrases,  "  as  if  the  morning 
had  come  of  a  mighty  day  full  of  awakening  sus 
pense  and  busy  preparation,  a  day  of  crisis  and 
of  final  hope,"  when  infinite  cavalcades  went  fil- 


George     William     Curtis  33 

ing  off  and  they  he?.rd  the  march  of  innumerable 
armies,  and  in  the  distance  a  din  of  "  battle,  and 
agony,  and  sudden  death,"  followed  by  a  grand 
burst  of  coronation  hymns  signalizing  victory. 

Mr.  Curtis's  great  opportunity  had  now  come, 
and  it  came  almost  without  his  knowing  it.  He 
had  fully  approved  the  wild  dashes  of  the  Monthly 
against  the  Gibraltar  rocks  of  the  old  parties,  but 
he  had  written  nothing  as  yet ;  and  while  he  was 
in  the  habit  of  reading  beautiful  lectures  from  the 
written  page,  he  distrusted  his  ability  to  speak 
from  the  platform.  By  the  merest  accident,  at  a 
Republican  meeting  on  Staten  Island,  he  was 
suddenly  and  vociferously  called  upon  for  an 
address.  He  ascended  the  steps  with  trembling; 
he  stammered  a  few  commonplaces  for  a  while, 
"his  practised  accents  throttled  by  his  fears,"  and 
then  his  good  genius  came  to  his  aid,  and  he 
poured  forth  an  invective  against  slavery  which 
filled  his  hearers  with  an  unquenchable  fire.* 


*  His  first  discourse  after  that  was  at  the  Wesleyan  Uni 
versity  (Middletown,  Conn.,  Aug.,  1856),  where  he  had  been 
invited  to  speak  on  ''The  Duties  of  the  American  Scholar." 
"Gladly  would  I  speak  to  you,1'  he  said,  "  of  the  charms  of 
scholarship,  of  the  dignity  and  worth  of  the  scholar — of  the 
abstract  relation  of  the  scholar  to  the  State.  .  .  .  But  would 
you  have  counted  him  a  friend  of  Greece  who  quietly  discussed 
the  abstract  nature  of  patriotism  on  that  summer  day  through 
whose  hopeless  and  immortal  hours  Leonidas  and  his  three 


34  George    William    Curtis 

From  that  hour  his  course  was  clear,  and  he 
entered  into  the  Fremont  campaign  with  an 
inexpressible  fearlessness  and  ardor ;  he  spoke 
from  stump  to  stump ;  he  spoke  by  night  and  by 
day,  and  he  spoke  with  a  force  of  eloquence  that 
he  has  never  since  equalled.  But  oh,  what  a 
battle  it  was !  You  have  had  a  presidential 
campaign  recently,  which  was  milk  and  honey 
compared  to  that  of  fire  and  hail,  in  which  a  vast 
social  system,  the  continuance  of  the  government, 
the  integrity  of  the  nation  itself,  were  at  stake. 

Fortunately  we  failed  in  that  attempt — fortu 
nately,  because  the  nation  was  not  quite  ready  yet, 
and  Fremont  was  not  an  adequate  leader.  But  it 
prepared  the  way  for  the  Lincoln  campaign  in 
i860,  which  was  scarcely  less  strenuous  and 
violent.  Mr.  Curtis  had  shown  his  power  on  the 
stump ;  he  now  showed  it  in  the  convention,  when 
at  Chicago  he  put  pandemonium  to  defeat,  and 
bid  the  wild  uproar  be  ruled. 

All  through  the  inevitable  war  he  did  what  he 
could  to  urge  on  its  vigorous  prosecution.  Nor 
was  this  service  at  a  distance  from  the  seat  of  war 


hundred  stood  at  Thermopylae  for  liberty  ?  .  .  .  Freedom  has 
always  its  Thermopylae,  and  the  American  scholar  should  know 
that  the  American  Thermopylae  is  Kansas."  That  clarion  voice 
echoed  through  all  the  colleges  and  among  the  hills,  and  had 
a  great  effect  in  arousing  young  men  to  the  greatness  of  the 
existing  contest. 


George    William    Curtis  35 

a  perfunctory  service.  It  had  its  sorrows  and 
its  sufferings.  From  his  own  family  a  cherished 
brother,  Joseph  Curtis,  in  the  prime  of  youth; 
from  the  noble  family  into  which  he  had  married, 
no  less  dear  to  him,*  three  of  its  inmates,  in  life's 
dawn  of  hope  and  promise — Shaw,  Lowell,  and 
Barlow — had  gone  to  the  front;  and  from  his 
immediate  circle  others,  like  that  brilliant  genius, 
Theodore  Winthrop,  were  gripping  their  sabres  on 
the  outposts.  Any  day's  bulletins  might  bring — 
some  days'  bulletins  did  bring — irreparable  heart 
aches.  Four  of  the  five  young  heroes  fell  in  the 
fierce  joy  of  battle,  to  pass  to  an  immortal  youth. 
But  through  all  vicissitude  and  anguish  his  voice 
still  helped  to  ram  the  cannon  home,  to  cheer  the 
poor  brother  in  the  trenches,  to  push  forward  the 
shining  tents  of  light  into  the  frowning  darkness. 
It  seems  as  if  such  excitements  must  have 
distracted  him  from  literary  pursuits,  but  these 
had  now  become  only  the  more  regular  and  ex 
acting.  Since  1853,  Mr.  Curtis,  without  sever 
ing  his  connection  with  Putnam,  had  written  in 
a  desultory  way  for  Harper  s  Magazine,  and  he 
finally  accepted  an  editorial  department  of  it, 
called  the  Editor's  Easy  Chair.  It  was  the  name 
given  to  a  form  of  literary  work  which,  begun 


*  In  1857  Mr.  Curtis  was  married  to  Annie,  a  daughter  of 
Francis  G.  Shaw,  of  Staten  Island. 


36  George     William    Curtis 

by  a  Frenchman,  Montaigne,  who  is  still  first  in 
merit  as   he  was  first   in   time,  has  long  been  a 
favorite   with    English    readers — the    short  essay 
on    minor   topics    of  social    interest  which  takes 
up  offences  too  light    for    the  censorship  of  the 
pulpit    and    too    harmless   for    the  chastisements 
of  the  law.     It  is  a  form  which  Addison,  Steele, 
Johnson,   Goldsmith,  Lamb,   Irving,  and   Thack 
eray    have    made    exceedingly    attractive.      The 
eighty  or    hundred  volumes  of  the    British    Es 
sayists    which    have    stood    the    sand-blasts    of 
time  lie  side  by  side,  in  every  respectable  library, 
with    the    eighty    or    hundred    volumes    of    the 
British    poets.      Carlyle    has     somewhere    com 
pared    the    editor    to  the  vagrant   preacher  who 
sets    up  his    booth    in    any  field,  and    utters  his 
wisdom  or  unwisdom  to  all  who  choose  to  hear. 
But  the  editor  of  the    Easy  Chair    preached  no 
sermons,  or  nothing  that  had  in  it  the    stiffness 
and  super-sanctity  of  the  sermon.     It  was  rather 
the  flowing  and  genial  talk  of  the  well-informed 
scholar,  who  was  also  the  well-bred    gentleman, 
turned  critic    and  commentator.     It  was    talk  in 
many  styles — critical,  historical,  humorous,  grave, 
fanciful  ;    in    short,  in    every    style    except    that 
which  Voltaire  declares    the  only  bad    one — the 
wearisome.      Our    friend    was    never    dull,     but 
always    elastic,  cheerful,  enlivening  ;    with  fewer 


George     William    Curtis  37 

ways  of  being    tedious,  and  more  of  being  en 
tertaining,    than    any  of   his    predecessors.      He 
had,  it  seems  to  me,  all  the  elegance  of   Addi- 
son  with  less  of  his  coldness  and  a  heartier  glow ; 
all  the  sprightliness  of  Steele,  with  a  richer  hu 
mor  and  a  keener  sense  of  moral  values  ;  but  to 
find  his  proper  parallels  we  must  come  down  to 
Goldsmith,  Lamb,  Irving,   and  Thackeray.      How 
many  thousands  gladly  recall    what    a    privilege 
and  delight  it  has  been  for  many  years  to  have 
this    commentator    visit    them    every    month,    to 
tell  them  what    to  admire  and  what  to  impugn, 
and    to  inspire    them    as    they  sat    in  their  own 
easy-chairs  with    kindlier    feelings    towards  their 
fellows,    to    dissipate    the    blues    of   business   or 
public    affairs,  and    to    send    them    to  bed    with 
buoyant  hopes  for  the  morrow  !     What  pleasant 
companionships    he    helped  us  to  form  with  the 
forgotten    poets,  from    whom    he  would    furnish 
little-known  but  delicious  verses  ;  with  misprized 
story-tellers    like   that    fine    fellow,   Fielding,  de 
spite  his    bedraggled  clothes  ;    or  with  our  child 
hood's  friend,  dear  old  John  Bunyan  !     How  we 
would  visit  with  him  at  the  Brownings  in  Flor 
ence,  or  get  a  chatty  letter  from  them,  or  go  out 
to  supper  with    that    grim   old  ogre    and    cynic, 
Titmarsh,  and  find  him   to  be,   after    all,   one  of 
the  most  simple  and  kindly  of  men ;   or  hear  the 


38  George     William     Curtis 

famous  Boz  read  once  more  of  Pickwick  and 
Sam  and  Buzfuz  and  the  widder  !  How  he 
made  the  stately  Everett  come  before  us  and 
speak  over  again  one  of  his  pieces,  with  all  the 
attitudes  and  gestures  rightly  put  in  ;  or  the 
fiery  Phillips  wield  his  keen,  incisive,  glittering 
rapier — but  bloodless  now  !  As  for  the  mimic 
world  of  the  stage,  so  entrancing  to  many  of  us, 
he  would  ring  his  little  bell,  and  the  curtain  would 
rise,  and  the  elder  Booth  or  the  elder  Wallack 
would  reappear,  for  this  time  only  ;  or  the 
younger  Booth,  with  his  matchless  elocution,  re 
cite  a  bit  of  Hamlet ;  or  Mrs.  Kemble  give  to 
Shakespeare  a  new  delight  by  her  recitation  ;  or 
the  dear  old  John  Gilbert  revive  Sir  Peter  or 
Sir  Anthony  till  your  sides  ached  ;  or  Jefferson 
sidled  on  as  poor  Rip,  to  make  the  heart  as  well 
as  the  sides  ache.  Now  and  then  he  would  take 
you  aside  and  whisper  slyly  into  your  ear  the 
gossip  of  the  sylphs  of  the  season  at  Newport, 
or  turn  the  key  into  enchanted  chambers  where 
the  echoes  still  lingered  of  voices  long  silent — 
of  Pasta  and  Grisi  and  Sontag  and  Jenny  Lind, 
and  where  Thalberg  and  Sivori  and  Ole  Bull 
once  played — in  short,  open  a  thousand  sources 
of  keen  and  noble  enjoyment. 

You    may  say,  perhaps,  that  any  editor  of  a 
periodical    can    play  this    showman's    part.      Oh, 


George     William    Curtis  39 

yes  ;  but  not  with  the  inexhaustible  variety  of 
matter,  the  inimitable  grace  of  manner,  of  Curtis. 
His  superiority  was  shown  when,  called  away 
altogether,  the  whole  literary  world  asked,  "  And 
who  can  take  his  place?"  and  the  whole  liter 
ary  world  answered,  "  No  one."  Well  might 
that  world  feel  kindly  towards  him,  for  in  all 
those  forty  years  he  had  made  and  left  no 
rankling  wound.  If  any  one  was  to  be  re 
proved,  he  was  reproved  with  a  smile  that  took 
away  the  sting.  Even 

"  The  stroke  of  death  was  like  a  lover's  pinch, 
Which  hurts  and  is  desired." 

When  a  cancer  was  to  be  cut  out,  it  was  cut  out 
with  the  surgeon's  delicate  lancet,  and  never 
with  the  soldier's  sword,  much  less  with  the 
butcher's  cleaver.  In  fact,  he  taught  us  how  to 
censure,  and  censure  severely,  but  without  bit 
terness,  as  he  taught  us  how  to  jest  without  a 
grimace,  and  to  instruct  without  pedantry  or 
assumption. 

It  was  observed  of  the  Easy  Chair  that  no 
allusion  was  ever  made  by  it  to  passing  politics, 
even  when 

"The  day  was  filled  with  slaughter, 

And  the  night-sky  red  with  flames," 

excepting,  perhaps,  by  a  picturesque  glance  at 
departing  troops,  or  a  shadow  of  disaster  moving 


40  George     William     Curtis 

over  the  page  like  an  ominous  cloud.  The  pleas 
ant,  graceful  talk  went  rippling  on  its  way,  as 
fresh  as  a  mountain  brook  through  daisied  mead 
ows  ;  and  you  might  have  supposed  the  genial 
talker  cosily  seated  in  some  rustic  retreat  amid 
cooling  dews  and  odorous  grasses,  and  listening 
to  the  songs  of  birds  and  the  musical  whispers 
of  the  winds.  But  all  the  while  he  was  in  the 
centre  of  strife. 

Towards  the  close  of  the  war  (1863)  he  had 
accepted  the  exclusive  political  control  of  Har 
per's  Weekly,  and  was  thus  brought  in  direct  con 
tact  with  public  affairs.  It  was  a  stirring  time, 
but  a  most  trying  time  for  statesmen  and  pub 
licists.  The  war  itself  had  been  a  spectacle  of 
terrible  grandeur;  there  were  in  the  valor  and 
self-sacrifice  of  the  troops,  and  the  calm  confi 
dence  of  the  people  in  their  cause,  features  of 
moral  sublimity;  and  the  magnificent  result  of 
the  war — the  emancipation  of  a  continent  justi 
fied  its  awful  cost,  and  made  us  proud  of  a  nation 
capable  of  such  sacrifices  in  defence  of  a  noble 
and  heroic  idea.  But  after  the  war,  from  the 
martyrdom  of  Lincoln  to  that  of  Garfield,  came 
a  period  of  almost  universal  dislocation — at  the 
South,  of  all  the  usual  machinery  of  civic  and 
social  life ;  and  at  the  North,  of  all  the  usual 
political  opinions.  Questions  arose  as  to  how  we 


George     William     Curtis  41 

should  weld  the  broken  pieces  again — questions 
of  formidable  magnitude  and  extreme  difficulty. 
There  a  horde  of  freedmen,  ignorant,  illiterate, 
and  who  had  never  taken  care  of  themselves,  was 
endowed  with  the  franchise,  to  become  the  prey 
of  carpet-bag  adventurers,  to  whom  the  ballot- 
box  was  but  another  name  for  the  dice-box; 
here  a  whole  new  generation,  who  had  never 
seen  a  gold  coin,  was  asked  to  decide  as  to  the 
disposition  of  an  enormous  debt  and  a  deluge  of 
paper  money.  For  the  first  time  in  our  history, 
a  president  was  impeached  and  tried  for  swing 
ing  round  the  circle,  as  he  called  a  whirligig  of 
vagaries ;  for  the  first  time  in  our  history,  a 
great  historical  party  became  so  lost  to  self- 
respect,  to  consistency  of  principle,  to  sanity  of 
mind,  that  it  made  its  standard-bearer  of  a  life 
long  and  inveterate  enemy,  with  whom  it  had  no 
sentiment  in  common ;  and,  for  the  first  time  in 
our  history,  the  presidency  itself  was  made, 
through  fraud  and  violence,  a  foot-ball  of  factions 
which  brought  the  ship  of  state  again  into  the 
troughs  of  the  sea,  and  summoned  the  clouds 
with  their  lightnings  to  the  horizon. 

In  this  uncertain  and  perilous  condition  of 
affairs  it  was  almost  a  providential  benefaction 
that  a  journal  having  thousands  of  exchanges 
and  nearly  half  a  million  weekly  readers  should 


42  George     William     Curtis 

have  been  put  in  the  hands  of  a  person  so  dear- 
sighted,  so  well-balanced,  so  honest,  and  so  cour 
ageous  as  Mr.  Curtis.  With  many  of  his  con 
clusions  at  the  time  I  did  not  agree.  He  was 
of  the  old  Federalistic  school,  which  put  its 
confidence  more  in  the  mere  forms  of  la\v  than 
in  the  saving  instincts  and  good  sense  of  the 
people,  and  his  distrust  of  the  Democratic  party, 
largely  justified  by  recent  events,  amounted  to 
prejudice ;  but  I  was  glad,  even  while  sometimes 
fighting  him  in  the  press,  to  recognize  his  high- 
mindedness,  his  impartiality,  his  conscientious  ad 
herence  to  his  convictions,  and  his  knightly  cour 
tesy  and  manly  frankness.  His  influence  was 
great,  because  his  readers  felt  that  every  word  he 
said  was  the  truth  as  he  understood  it.  His  edi 
torial  articles  were  models  of  political  discussion, 
always  calm,  serious,  and  earnest,  with  nothing 
of  the  hurried  superficiality,  the  disingenuous  per 
versions  that  often  mark  the  newspaper  style. 
They  met  every  question  face  to  face  without  dis 
guising  its  difficulties  or  giving  a  partisan  turn  to 
any  of  its  aspects.  They  taunted  no  one  ;  they 
sneered  at  no  one ;  they  argued  openly,  fairly, 
generously  with  all.  Their  author  seemed,  in 
deed,  to  have  but  one  ambition,  which  was  to  lift 
our  politics  to  the  highest  level  of  dignity  and 
honor. 


George     William     Curtis  43 

As  soon  as  Mr.  Curtis  was  satisfied  that  the 
proper  fruits  of  the  war  would  be  gathered  and 
garnered,  and 

"The  sacred  pillars  of  the  commonwealth 
Stand  readjusted  on  their  ancient  poise," 

his  attention  was  turned  to  certain  administra 
tive  reforms  which  seemed  to  require  instant 
action.  A  chief,  almost  exclusive,  object  of  his 
solicitude  was  the  condition  of  the  civil  service, 
which  was  deplorable  to  the  last  degree.  Meth 
ods  of  distributing  public  office  had  come  into 
vogue  utterly  at  war  with  any  true  theory  of 
popular  institutions,  with  any  right  constitution 
of  political  parties,  and  with  the  uniform  prac 
tice  of  the  Fathers  of  the  Republic.  They  were 
the  application  to  practical  politics  of  the  maxims 
of  ancient  and  barbaric  warfare,  which  proclaimed 
that  to  the  victor  belonged  the  spoils  of  the 
enemy.  Forty  years  ago,  in  writing  of  the  sub 
ject,  the  present  speaker  asked:  "Need  any 
one  attempt  to  describe  the  disastrous  effect  of 
such  a  practice  on  all  the  functions  of  public 
life  ?  Does  it  not  attack  political  virtue  at  its 
source ;  corrupt  the  integrity  of  the  political 
body ;  inflame  controversies  which  should  be  the 
debate  of  great  principles  into  intemperate  and 
violent  personal  hatreds ;  convert  popular  suf 
frage  into  a  farce,  or,  what  is  worse,  into  a  false- 


44  George     William     Curtis 

hood  and  a  fraud ;  introduce  the  most  unworthy 
agents  into  the  most  responsible  trusts  ;  bring 
a  scandal  upon  government,  and  thereby  weaken, 
if  it  does  not  wholly  destroy,  the  sanctity  of 
law  ?  "  This  argument  was  illustrated  by  a  ref 
erence  to  the  metropolis,  where  "  a  nest  of 
profligates  and  gamesters  had  baffled  juries, 
baffled  courts,  baffled  legislatures,  and  contemned 
public  opinion  in  their  shameless  career  of  pecu 
lation." 

Of  course  such  results  were  deprecated  by 
many  of  our  more  eminent  statesmen,  and  as 
far  back  as  1835  Mr.  Calhoun,  in  his  famous 
report  on  "Executive  Patronage,"  denounced 
the  methods  in  which  they  originated  with  the 
utmost  lucidity  and  vehemence.  "  Were  a  pre 
mium  offered,"  he  said,  "  for  the  best  means  of 
subverting  liberty  and  establishing  despotism,  no 
scheme  more  perfect  could  be  devised."  In  this 
view  he  was  joined  by  Webster,  Clay,  and  other 
eminent  statesmen  of  all  parties.  In  fact  the 
best  traditions  of  all  parties  were  against  the 
practice. 

But  the  most  pernicious  tendency  of  the 
system  they  did  not  foresee,  and  that  was  the 
aggrandizement  of  the  king-maker  rather  than 
of  the  king ;  or,  in  other  words,  the  evolution  of 
that  most  anomalous  of  all  political  creatures, 


George     William     Curtis  45 

the  party  boss.  It  brought  into  existence  an 
order  of  men  who,  without  having  performed 
any  public  services — who  were  neither  soldiers, 
statesmen,  great  merchants,  nor  captains  of  in 
dustry — who,  without  possessing  any  signal  ability 
or  virtue,  except  the  ability  to  conspire  and  to 
intrigue,  and  the  virtue  of  a  shameless  impu 
dence,  are  able,  by  the  promise  of  spoils,  to  com 
bine  their  corps  of  janissaries  in  such  a  way  as 
to  empower  them  to  dictate  terms  to  assembly 
men,  congressmen,  judges — nay,  to  presidents, 
the  august  embodiments  of  the  majesty  and  the 
might  of  the  people. 

Mr.  Curtis  was  an  earnest  observer  of  this  last 
development,  and  he  had  no  need  to  go  abroad 
for  proofs  of  its  iniquity.  Object-lessons — a  sort 
of  kindergarten  of  deviltry — were  hourly  before 
him.  He  lived  through  the  career  of  one 
Tweed,  a  coarse,  vulgar,  ignorant,  and  reckless 
adventurer,  who,  scarcely  able  to  make  a  living 
by  an  honest  mechanical  trade,  had  yet,  by  the 
use  of  a  party  organization  and  the  doctrine  of 
spoils,  made  himself  the  political  dictator  of  the 
city  and,  to  a  considerable  extent,  of  the  State. 
He  designated  aldermen,  assemblymen,  judges, 
and  all  the  lesser  occupants  of  bureaus,  i.  e.,  he 
determined  who  should  make,  interpret,  and  ex 
ecute  the  laws,  turning  all  the  great  functions  of 


46  George     William     Ciirtis 

government  into  a  means  of  enriching  himself 
and  his  fellow-conspirators.  This  Panama  scan 
dal,  which  is  to-day  shaking  France  to  the  core, 
had  its  prototype  in  our  city  court-house,  whose 
every  stone  was  laid  in  a  mortar  of  corruption, 
and  every  nail  driven  by  purchased  and  infamous 
hands.  So  complete  was  the  ascendency  of  one 
man  that,  when  the  better  members  of  his  party 
protested  against  his  outrages,  he  replied  with  a 
sardonic  leer,  "  And  what  are  you  going  to  do 
about  it  ?  " 

It  is  true  that  Tweed  and  his  harpies  were 
ultimately  dislodged,  his  legislators  deposed  and 
dogged  by  the  curses  of  after-time,  his  judges 
impeached,  his  immediate  friends  imprisoned  or 
exiled  ;  but  not  until  they  were  well  gorged,  and 
after  years  of  effort  on  the  part  of  one  of  our 
most  astute  and  persistent  statesmen.  Even  then, 
while  the  particular  brood  was  killed,  the  cock 
atrice's  egg  remained  uncrushed.  Tweed  had, 
and  still  has,  his  imitators  in  every  State,  city, 
and  town  in  the  nation,  and  their  iron  grip  is 
fastened  almost  as  firmly  as  ever  upon  parties — 
but  not  quite,  thank  Heaven  and  the  untiring 
zeal  of  the  Civil- Service  reformers  ! 

It  was  in  vain  to  ask  Congress  or  other 
legislative  bodies  to  abolish  the  nuisance,  be 
cause  so  many  of  their  members  were  made  by 


George     William     Curtis  47 

the  machine,  and  no  one  likes  to  kill  his  crea 
tor.  Even  when  it  was  not  so,  the  interest  in 
the  reform  was  abstract,  indirect,  impersonal, 
and  a  matter  of  general  principle  confined  to 
a  few,  while  the  interest  in  the  evil  itself  was 
immediate,  personal,  profitable,  and  shared  by 
many.  It  took  forty  years  of  strenuous  strug 
gle  before  Mr.  Thomas  Allen  Jencks,  of  Rhode 
Island,  could  secure  the  appointment  of  a  Civil- 
Service  Commission  to  inquire  into  the  nature 
of  the  abuses  under  federal  rule,  and  to  suggest 
remedies.  Mr.  Curtis  was  at  once  indicated  as 
a  member  of  that  commission,  and,  appointed 
to  it  by  President  Grant,  was  chosen  its  chair 
man.  We  have  seen  the  determination  and 
energy  he  applied  to  the  uprooting  of  slavery ; 
and  here  was  another  form  of  it — not  so  patent 
or  repulsive,  far  more  subtle,  and  scarcely  less 
destructive  of  the  moral  fibre  of  the  nation — to 
which  he  gave  the  same  fearlessness  and  fervor 
of  antagonism.  His  first  report,  in  1871,  as  an 
exposition  of  the  evil,  and  of  the  proper  mode 
of  correcting  it,  was  a  sort  of  magna  charta  of 
reform.  Its  logic  was  never  answered,  and  could 
not  be;  indeed,  its  argument  of  the  constitu 
tional  points  involved  was  in  substance,  and 
almost  in  terms,  adopted  by  the  Court  of  Ap 
peals  in  this  State,  and  afterwards  by  the 


48  George     William     Curtis 

Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States.  But  of 
what  avail  ?  General  Grant  was  sincere  in  his 
approval  of  the  change,  but  he  found  that  his 
interference  had  stirred  up  a  nest  of  hornets 
more  formidable  than  the  bullets  of  his  fifty 
battles.  His  call  for  appropriations  to  carry  on 
the  struggle  was  flung  in  his  teeth  by  Con 
gress,  his  zeal  abated,  and  Mr.  Curtis  was  com 
pelled  to  resign. 

His  zeal,  however,  did  not  abate.  Too  much 
had  been  done  towards  the  introduction  of  the 
reform  into  the  federal  bureaus  to  warrant  an 
abandonment  of  it;  and  for  ten  years,  as  presi 
dent  of  the  national  league  and  of  the  local 
league,  his  efforts  were  incessant  and  effective. 
His  annual  addresses,  in  the  former  capacity, 
were  models  of  appeal — crammed  with  pertinent 
facts,  with  impregnable  proofs,  with  withering 
sarcasms,  with  irresistible  eloquence.  They  so 
held  all  executive  officers  up  to  the  line  of  duty 
that  many  of  them,  ashamed  to  do  openly  what 
party  exigences  required,  resorted  to  shifts  and 
subterfuges  to  hide  their  cowardice. 

In  assuming  this  position  of  censorship,  Mr. 
Curtis  came  in  conflict  with  the  party  of  his  pre 
dilection,  and  saw  no  alternative  but  to  break 
away  from  it  altogether ;  that,  however,  was  no 
easy  step.  He  admitted  the  necessity  of  parties ; 


George     William     Curtis  49 

but  he  held,  too,  that  the  basis  of  party  itself 
must  be  reason  and  conscience.  Allegiance  to 
party,  carried  beyond  that  point,  became  infi 
delity  to  one's  own  soul,  and  treason  to  the  best 
interests  of  the  nation.  Willingly  had  he  given 
to  his  party  the  careful  study,  the  patient  toil, 
the  persuasive  eloquence,  the  burning  enthusiasm 
of  his  best  days  ;  but  one  thing  he  would  not 
sacrifice  to  any  party — his  sense  of  right  and 
wrong  as  a  moralist,  his  independence  as  a  citi 
zen,  his  self-respect  as  a  man.  Denounce  him 
you  might,  ridicule  him,  ostracise  him,  fill  his 
post-bag  with  the  garbage  of  the  gutter,  and  yet 
would  he  trust  in  that  interior  monitor  which  is 
the  highest  rule  of  duty  we  can  know  or  even  con 
ceive.  But  for  men  of  this  high  tone,  whom  the 
poor  sticklers  for  use  and  wont  are  apt  to  decry, 
"  The  dust  of  antique  time  would  lie  unswept, 
And  mountainous  Error  be  too  highly  heaped 
For  truth  to  overpeer." 

Mr.  Curtis's  disappointment  with  the  action  of 
Republican  leaders  as  to  the  civil  service  led  his 
mind  to  serious  distrust  of  the  policy  of  the 
Republican  party  on  other  questions,  which,  as 
they  are  still  pending,  we  cannot  discuss  at  this 
time.  Suffice  it  to  say  that  he  was  compelled, 
in  1884,  to  announce  that  he  could  not  support 
its  candidate  for  the  Presidency,  and  in  1888, 


50  George     William     Curtis 

that  he  must  support  the  candidate  of  the  oppo 
sition.  But  in  thus  taking  an  attitude  of  com 
plete  superiority  to  all  parties,  he  thenceforth 
stood  before  the  public  as  the  champion  of  Inde 
pendence,  to  which  he  kept 

"  constant  as  the  northern  star  .   .   . 

That  unassailable  holds  in  his  rank 

Unshaked  of  motion." 

Indeed,  his  mind  seemed  to  open  more  and  more 
fully  as  he  advanced  to  that  most  vital  and  salu 
tary  of  all  social  truths — that  while  organizations 
are  indispensable  to  the  attainment  of  certain 
great  human  ends,  the  individual  person  is  always 
higher  than  any  organization,  and  for  the  simple 
reason  that  the  man  is  the  End,  and  the  organ 
ization  only  the  Means.  Therefore  it  is,  that 
when  you  put  the  means  above  the  end,  you 
reverse  the  true  order  of  life,  you  raise  power 
above  right,  and  open  and  ease  the  way  to  in 
numerable  and  destructive  tyrannies.  The  gran 
deur  of  his  position,  denounced  by  partisans,  was, 
after  his  death,  recognized  by  the  newspapers  of 
nearly  every  faction  when  they  spoke  of  him — 
as  Lowell  had  previously  spoken  of  him  in  verse 
— as  "the  Great  Citizen."  He  was  the  great 
citizen  because  he  had  dared  to  be  the  honest 
citizen,  and  a  nobler  epitaph  "  nor  marble  nor 
brass  nor  parchment "  ever  bore. 


George    William    Curtis  51 

Mr.  Curtis  owed  his  successes  to  the  voice  no 
less  than  to  the  pen,  and  this  address  would  be 
exceedingly  imperfect  if  it  did  not  dwell  for  a 
moment  on  his  peculiar  oratory.  "  Eloquence," 
he  somewhere  says,  "  is  the  supreme  charm  of 
speech,"  giving  it  precedence  over  song,  "  but 
where  the  charm  lies  is  the  most  delusive  of 
secrets.  It  is  the  spell  of  the  magician,  but  it  is 
not  in  his  wand  nor  in  his  words.  It  is  the  tone 
of  the  picture,  it  is  the  rhythm  of  the  poem.  It 
is  neither  a  statement  nor  an  argument,  nor  a 
rhetorical,  picturesque,  or  passionate  appeal.  It 
is  all  these  penetrated  and  glowing  with  the  power 
of  living  speech — a  magnetism,  a  fascination,  a 
nameless  delight." 

But  however  it  is  to  be  explained,  I  can  bear 
witness  to  the  fact  in  his  case.  It  has  been  my 
good  fortune  to  hear  many  of  the  foremost  speak 
ers  of  the  age — from  Kossuth,  the  prince  of  all,  to 
Gladstone,  Bright,  Thiers,  Channing,  Everett, 
Webster,  Choate,  Sumner,  Beecher,  Phillips,  Ser 
geant  Prentiss,  and  last,  though  not  least,  Robert 
Ingersoll ;  and  while  I  recognize  in  several  of 
them  qualities  which  Mr.  Curtis  did  not  attain — 
a  majesty  and  massiveness  of  movement  like  that 
of  a  great  ship  of  war  bearing  gallantly  down  into 
the  battle,  or  the  impetus  energy  which,  like  a 
deep  and  swollen  river,  sweeps  all  before  it,  or, 


52  George     William    Curtis 

again,  an  intensity  of  pathos  which  renders  every 
sentence  tremulous  with  tears — it  may  be  said  of 
Mr.  Curtis,  without  extravagance  of  praise,  that 
for  sustained  elevation  and  dignity,  for  uniformity 
of  grace  and  unruffled  fulness  and  richness  of 
charm,  he  had  few  peers.  His  greatest  effort,  as 
I  recall  it  now,  was  the  eulogy  he  delivered  on 
your  late  venerable  president,  Mr.  Bryant,  at  the 
Academy  of  Music.  A  more  brilliant  or  distin 
guished  assemblage  was  never  gathered  in  that 
once  famous  temple  of  art — comprising  the  rival 
claimants  for  the  presidency,  governors,  judges, 
and  the  picked  representatives  of  the  professional, 
literary,  and  artistic  classes,  and  circling  zones  of 
whatever  was  beautiful  in  our  female  world.  His 
subject  was  not  one  of  those  that  are  usually 
thought  necessary  to  arouse  the  best  energies  of 
a  speaker — no  invasion  of  Philip,  no  conspiracy 
against  the  mistress  of  the  world,  no  cruel  tyrant 
hanging  like  a  cloud  on  the  declivities  of  the  hills, 
no  separation  of  mother  country  and  daughter 
colonies,  no  calling  of  a  nation  to  arms — only  the 
character  of  a  simple  citizen  whose  victories  were 
those  of  the  pen.  Yet  for  an  hour  and  a  half  that 
vast  and  diversified  audience  was  held  in  rapt 
attention;  not  a  silvery  word  or  a  golden  image 
was  lost;  and  when  he  closed  with  an  impressive 
passage  there  was  a  solemn  hush  as  if  all  were 


George     William    Curds  53 

expectant  of  more,  a  pause  that  called  to  mind 
Milton's  oft-quoted  description  of  the  effect  of 
Raphael's  discourse  on  our  first  parent,  when  he 
left  his  voice  so  charming  in  Adam's  ear  that  for 
a  while  he 

"  Thought  him  still  speaking,  still  stood  fixed  to  hear." 

It  was  a  suspense  of  nature  preceding  a  thunder- 
break  of  applause. 

Under  the  immediate  influence  of  the  spell, 
one  was  ever  too  full  of  the  pleasure  to  undertake 
to  analyze,  or  even  to  wish  to  analyze  its  sources, 
and  only  in  cooler  moments,  when  the  effect  had 
passed  off,  could  he  recall  them.  He  would  then, 
perhaps,  remember  the  liquid  and  equable  flow  of 
the  voice,  pure  and  rich  in  tone,  distinct  in  enun 
ciation,  and  melodious  in  inflection  and  cadence; 
the  limpid  simplicity  and  purity  of  the  language, 
at  the  same  time  sinewy  and  strong ;  the  kindled 
eye  and  the  rapid  changes  of  feature  answering  to 
each  emotion  as  it  arose ;  the  play  and  flash  of 
imagery,  like  lightning  in  the  summer  cloud — 
never  brought  in  as  mere  ornament,  but  arising 
spontaneously  as  the  only  possible  vehicle  of  the 
thought ;  the  thought  itself,  always  natural, 
apposite,  and  impressive,  but  borne  on  some 
wave  of  feeling  which  pulsated  through  each  sen 
tence  like  rich  blood  in  the  cheeks  of  a  sensitive 


54  George     William     Curtis 

woman  ;  the  felicity  of  the  allusions  or  quotations, 
each  one  of  which  was  like  turning  on  a  new 
shade  of  color ;  and  then  the  perfect  symmetry 
and  completeness  of  the  whole — no  part  obtrusive, 
no  part  deficient — and  all  presented  with  such  an 
absence  of  apparent  effort,  such  consummate  ease 
and  grace  of  delivery,  that  no  room  was  left  in 
the  mind  of  the  hearer  for  any  emotion  but  that 
of  admiration  and  delight. 

Complimenting  him,  after  the  delivery  of  his 
eulogy  on  Bryant,  on  the  perfectness  of  the  per 
formance,  he  modestly  replied,  "  Dear  friend,  it 
was  the  occasion  of  my  life  " — which  was  doubt 
less  true  as  to  circumstances ;  but  the  phrase  con 
veyed  to  me  the  open  secret  of  his  life.  He  was 
so  supremely,  thoroughly,  and  unconsciously  the 
artist,  that  every  occasion  was  an  occasion,  if  not 
the  occasion,  of  his  life.  By  the  mere  instinct  of 
artistic  fitness  he  made  his  preparations  so  care 
fully  and  completely  ;  his  respect  for  his  audience, 
however  composed,  was  so  profound,  his  fidelity 
to  his  own  ideals  so  exacting,  that  he  was  ever 
at  his  best.  He  could  no  more  have  offered  an 
uncombed  or  slovenly  speech  than  he  could  have 
come  forward  uncombed  and  slovenly  in  person; 
or  than  a  great  painter  could  hang  a  daub  on 
the  walls  of  an  exhibition,  or  a  true  poet  put 
forth  a  poem  with  rheumatism  in  its  feet  I  have 


George     William     Curtis  55 

no  doubt  that  those  who  afterwards  heard  his 
eulogies  of  Sumner,  Phillips,  and  Lowell,  or  his 
oration  at  the  Washington  Monument  or  on  the 
Saratoga  battle-field,  or  his  several  addresses  to 
the  Civil  Service  League,  thought  as  I  did  at  the 
Bryant  Commemoration — that  they  had  got  him 
in  his  happiest  mood.  Even  on  lesser  occasions 
— a  dinner  of  the  Chamber  of  Commerce,  of  the 
Academy  of  Design,  or  of  a  college  fraternity — he 
was  sure  to  be  up  to  expectation,  if  he  did  not 
surpass  it ;  and  when  he  mingled  some  touches  of 
humor,  some  quips  and  quirks  of  merriment,  in 
his  discourse,  they  were  certain  to  be  set  in  an 
enchased  framework  of  gold  and  silver.  How 
often  at  a  simple  symposium  of  a  few  good  fel 
lows,  when  George,  as  we  familiarly  called  him, 
was  talking,  it  seemed  as  if  we  sat  under  a  gor 
geous  summer  sky,  with  murmurs  of  music  in  all 
the  air. 

Mr.  Curtis  was  most  happily  endowed  for  the 
production  of  effects  upon  others,  either  as  a 
writer  or  a  speaker.  His  mind  was  both  acute 
and  vigorous,  but  it  was  planted  in  a  soil  richly 
sensitive,  imaginative,  and  emotional.  His  turn 
of  thought  was  not  philosophical,  i.  e.,  metaphys 
ical  or  speculative;  he  never  dug  down  to  what 
Schopenhauer  called  "  the  fourfold  roots  of  the 
sufficient  reason,"  and  the  very  phrase  would  have 


5  6  George     William    Curtis 

amused  him ;  but  none  the  less  he  had  a  philoso 
phy  of  his  own — that  natural  idealism  or  ideal 
naturalism  which  is  the  philosophy  of  all  artists 
who  see  consciousness  in  nature  and  nature  in 
consciousness ;  and  for  whom  the  smile,  which 
is  a  pure  delight  of  the  mind,  exists  also  in  the 
sparkle  of  the  eye  and  the  curve  of  the  lips. 
His  intellectual  life  came  to  him  from  no  mys 
terious  pineal  gland  hidden  away  in  the  folds 
of  the  brain,  but  from  the  tremulous  fibres  of 
the  senses,  whose  manifold,  many-colored,  many- 
toned  messages  were  taken  up  by  that  imperial 
wizard  and  artificer,  the  fantasy — and,  by  some 
secret  alchemy,  dissolved  and  wrought  over  again 
into  manifold,  many-colored,  many-toned  words. 
It  is  not  to  be  inferred  from  this  that  Mr. 
Curtis's  reasoning  powers  were  inferior ;  he  seized 
readily  upon  general  principles,  but  not  the  pro- 
foundest  nor  the  most  abstract,  only  the  middle 
sort,  the  axiomata  media,  which  connect  the  more 
obvious  aspects  of  things  and  lie  open  to  com 
mon-sense.  He  could  argue  well,  as  many  an 
adversary  found  to  his  cost,  but  not  at  long 
breath ;  he  preferred  figures  of  rhetoric  to  figures 
of  logic,  and  he  drew  men  by  the  lyre  of  Apollo 
rather  than  drove  them  by  the  club  of  Hercules. 
They  were  the  more  easily  drawn  because, 
through  all  the  glow  and  glamour  of  his  sensuous 


George    William    Curtis  57 

and  imaginative  showings  there  pierced  such  a 
solid  aspiration  for  what  is  permanently  com 
manding  in  nature  and  permanently  ennobling  in 
conduct,  and  such  a  fixed,  instinctive,  unaffected 
love  of  truth,  that  he  commanded  at  the  same 
time  that  he  won  adherence  and  homage.* 

The  career  I  have  roughly  outlined — though 
full,  well-rounded,  and  beautiful — gives  but  an 
imperfect  image  of  the  man  as  he  was  in  himself, 
in  his  humble  home,  and  in  his  private  intercourse 
with  friends.  Nothing  he  ever  wrote  or  spoke  or 
did  was  so  dear  to  those  who  knew  him  inti 
mately  as  "the  soft  memory  of  his  virtues,"  in 
which  so  many  varied  elements  kindly  mingled. 
Simple  and  guileless  as  a  child,  sweet,  modest, 
and  lovable  as  a  woman,  loyal  and  devoted  to  his 
friends,  generous  and  without  gall  to  his  enemies, 
and  uniformly  courteous  to  all,  he  carried  with 
him  everywhere  an  atmosphere  of  cheerfulness 


*  If  one  were  disposed  to  criticise  his  intellectual  constitu 
tion,  one  might  say  that  he  was,  particularly  in  early  life,  over 
charged  with  sentiment  that  came  near  to  sentimentality.  His 
personal  emotions  were  then  so  strong  that  he  was  not  able 
to  master  them  completely  or  to  be  dramatic.  His  novel,  called 
"  Trumps,"  was  a  proof  of  this  :  although  written  with  extreme 
grace,  and  abounding  in  exquisite  scenes  and  descriptions,  it 
was  not  a  success  with  novel-readers,  because  the  characters  too 
strictly  reflected  the  moods  of  the  author.  But  this  trait  helped 
his  oratory. 


5  8  George     William     Curtis 

that  was  as  invigorating  as  a  mountain  breeze. 
Punctual  in  the  discharge  of  the  lowliest  as  of  the 
highest  duties,  working  for  thirteen  years  a  poor 
man  to  pay  off  debts  which  were  not  legal  debts 
nor  debts  of  honor,  but  claims  upon  business  asso 
ciates  for  whom  he  was  not  strictly  responsible, 
he  was  ever  as  ready  to  take  part  in  local  political 
meetings  as  he  was  to  attend  a  State  convention, 
and  more  ready  to  read  a  sermon  of  Channing  or 
Martineau  to  a  small  flock  of  fellow-worshippers 
than  he  was  to  put  on  the  robes  of  a  Chancellor 
of  the  University  or  to  parade  as  a  minister  in 
foreign  courts.  Enjoying  every  innocent  pleasure 
to  the  full — indeed,  in  our  old  Century  Saturday 
nights,  remembering  with  Prince  Hal,  "  the  poor 
creature,  small  beer,"  he  was  jovial  with  the  most 
jovial,  knowing  that  pleasure  builds  up  and  for 
tifies  the  nerves  for  the  severer  strains  of  life  ;  but 
he  never  went  to  excess,  nor  lost  his  self-respect 
nor  dignity  in  any  unseemly  hilarity.  His  ab 
solute  sincerity  inspired  a  confidence  as  abso 
lute  ;  and  if  circumstances  compelled  him  to 
break  with  an  old  friend,  the  rupture  awakened 
no  resentments — only  painful  regrets  that  it  must 
be  so.  He  was  only  stern  and  unbending  in  the 
line  of  what  he  deemed  his  duty,  and  even  then, 

"  his  wit,  with  fancy  arm  in  arm, 
Masked  half  its  muscles  in  its  skill  to  charm." 


George     William    Curtis  59 

In  a  word,  Mr.  Curtis  touched  life  at  nearly 
every  point  at  which  it  is  possible  for  the  indi 
vidual  soul  to  put  forth  its  tendrils  into  the 
universe.  As  much  as  any  landscape  artist  or 
poet  he  loved  external  Nature  in  all  her  moods 
and  forms,  her  glancing  lights  and  deepening 
shadows ;  he  had  the  scholar's  fondness  for 
books,  and  could  have  lived  forever  in  that 
magic  world  of  truth  and  fiction  which  lies  like 
a  storage-battery  on  the  shelves  of  every  library; 
he  delighted  in  pictures,  of  which  he  judged 
with  a  rare  mastery  without  losing  enthusiasm ; 
he  was  enraptured  by  music,  whether  of  the 
oratorio  or  the  opera — of  Jenny  Lind  or  Pade- 
rewski  or  some  humble  St.  Cecilia  singing  alone 
the  touching  melodies  of  the  fireside ;  and  yet 
he  communed  betimes  with  the  "  spiritual  crea- 
ures  who  walk  the  earth,  or  when  we  wake  or 
when  we  sleep,"  and  often  heard  from  steeps 
of  echoing  hills  and  thickets  "  celestial  voices 
on  the  midnight  air,  sole  or  responsive  to  each 
other's  song."  One  silver  chord,  it  seems  to 
me,  bound  his  whole  being  in  harmony.  It 
was  that  innate,  instinctive,  spontaneous  ideality 
which  inspired,  shaped,  and  toned  his  every 
feeling  and  thought  as  well  as  his  every  act. 
An  aspiration  for  excellence,  in  its  various 
forms  of  justice,  truth,  goodness,  and  courtesy, 


60  George     William    Curtis 

ever  cast  its  light  before  his  eyes  and  ever 
whispered  in  his  ears,  as  the  sea  murmurs  in 
the  sea-shell  of  a  vast  Beyond  which  is  its 
proper  home. 

It  was  this  ideality  which  lured  him  as  a 
boy  to  seek  a  golden  age  restored  in  the  fra 
ternity  at  Brook  Farm  ;  which  led  him  to  the 
neighborhood  of  Emerson  and  Hawthorne,  and 
in  after-life  gathered  around  him  so  many  noble 
friendships ;  which  carried  him  to  the  sources 
of  civilization  in  the  mystic  East,  and  to  its 
splendid  final  achievements  in  Europe  ;  which, 
with  all  his  daintiness  and  reserve,  made  him 
so  tolerant  of  uncouth  and  shambling  reformers, 
in  whose  strident  voices  he  heard  the  far-ofif 
preludes  of  coming  harmonies  ;  which  opened  a 
door  from  the  severe  labors  of  his  every-day 
life  into  a  dream-land  of  glorious  hopes ;  which 
drew  the  sword  of  his  eloquence  against  slavery 
and  the  unmanly  degradations  of  our  civic  and 
political  customs ;  which  scattered  so  many 
jewels  over  his  pages,  and  gave  to  his  style  at 
times  the  flavor  of  a  luscious  old  wine,  "  with 
beaded  bubbles  winking  at  the  brim,"  and 
"  Tasting  of  Flora  and  the  country  green, 

Dance,  and  Provencal  song,  and  sun-burned  mirth  " ; 

which  accounts,  too,  for  an  occasional  undertone 
of  pensive  sadness  which  escapes  him,  like  the 


George     William     Curtis  61 

sigh  of  a  strong  man,  and  which  made  him 
profoundly  religious — but  with  a  religion  that, 
defecated  of  the  more  acrid  creeds,  finds  in  the 
imperative  law  of  Reverence  for  Manhood  the 
highest,  nay,  the  only  conceivable,  realization  of 
an  Eternal  Love  and  Wisdom. 

As  I  look  back  on  this  rare,  sweet,  gentle, 
great  personality,  there  comes  before  me,  as  an 
external  emblem  of  it,  the  palm-tree  he  once 
saw  in  Capri — gently  throned  upon  a  slope  of 
richest  green,  and  crowned  with  brilliant  and 
fragrant  flowers,  as  it  rose  in  separate  and 
peculiar  stateliness  in  the  odorous  garden  air. 
Towering  far  above  its  selected  society  of  shin 
ing  fig-trees  and  lustrous  oleanders,  it  looked 
through  the  dream-mists  of  Southern  Italy  down 
upon  the  bright  bay  of  Naples,  where  all  the 
civilizations  of  the  ages  have  at  some  time 
passed — across  to  the  islands  of  the  sirens  who 
sang  to  Ulysses  ;  to  the  orange  groves  of  Sor 
rento,  where  Tasso  was  born ;  and  to  the  rocky 
shelves  of  Posilippo,  where  Virgil  lies  buried. 
As  it  looked,  the  birds  came  and  lodged  in  its 
branches — tropic  birds  with  their  songs  of  love ; 
birds  of  the  far  Norland,  who  chanted  their 
mystic  tunes;  and  vocalists  without  a  name, 
whose  magic  accents  carry  the  secrets  of  the 
elves  and  fairies — while  the  people  gathered  in 


62  George     William     Curtis 

its  shade  for  shelter,  and  ate  its  luscious  fruit 
for  strength,  and  listened  to  its  melodies  for 
cheer.  But  the  palm,  we  are  told,  had  a  song 
of  its  own — a  prophetic  song,  which  told  of 
a  broad  and  ever-flowing  river,  ever  flowing 
through  greener  grasses,  under  sunnier  skies,  to 
an  eternal  summer ;  typical  of  that  grand  stream 
of  humanity  which,  though  it  sometimes  breaks 
in  cataracts,  and  bears  the  woes  of  earth  on  its 
bosom — funeral  processions  as  well  as  festal 
processions — and  reflects  from  its  surface  the 
storms  no  less  than  the  smiles  of  heaven,  is 
gliding  ever  on,  ever  on,  to  a  future  of  larger 
liberty,  surer  justice,  broader  culture,  and  a 
universal  love  and  peace.  If  that  tree  is  now 
fallen,  and  its  trunk  lies  prostrate  on  the  mould 
that  decays,  and  the  birds  sing  no  more  in  its 
branches,  yet  the  echoes  of  its  own  song  float 
on,  and  the  thought  of  its  beauty  is  to  us  who 
knew  it,  and  will  be  to  those  who  shall  come 
to  know  it,  "  a  joy  forever  "  ;  yes,  a  joy  forever 
— but 

"  Oh  for  the  touch  of  a  vanished  hand, 
And  the  sound  of  a  voice  that  is  still !  " 


EDWIN    BOOTH 


EDWIN    BOOTH* 


MR.  PRESIDENT  AND  GENTLEMEN  OF  THE  PLAYERS: 

It  was  but  a  few  months  since  I  was  asked  to 
speak  some  commemorative  words  of  a  dear  friend 
deceased,  who  was  a  most  distinguished  and 
charming  ornament  of  our  literature,  Mr.  George 
William  Curtis  ;  and  it  is  to  me  a  most  affecting 
incident  that  the  last  time  I  saw  another  dear 
friend — no  less  distinguished  and  charming  in 
another  sphere — he  was  reading  those  words 
with  sympathetic  approval.  But  as  I  listened  to 
his  over-generous  appreciations  I  little  thought 
how  soon  I  should  be  asked  to  perform  the 
same  melancholy  duty  in  respect  to  himself.  I 
refer,  of  course,  to  Edwin  Booth. 

The  name,  as  I  pronounce  it,  falters  upon  my 


*  lt  The  Players,"  a  club  of  which  Mr.  Edwin  Booth  was  the 
Founder  and  First  President,  gave  a  memorial  celebration  of 
the  sixtieth  anniversary  of  his  birth  at  the  Madison  Square  Con 
cert  Hall  on  the  I3th  of  November,  1893.  Mr.  Joseph  Jefferson 
presided  on  the  occasion  and  made  a  brief  address ;  an  elegy 

65 


66  Edwin    Booth 

lips,  for  it  recalls  many  hours  of  joy,  with  few  of 
sorrow,  while  it  reminds  me  that  he  is  gone 
from  us  forever.  We  shall  no  more  see  that 
fine  intellectual  face  which  interpreted  with  so 
much  beauty  and  truth  the  grandest  creations  of 
the  foremost  human  intellect;  we  shall  hear  no 
more  that  melodious  voice  which  added  a  new 
music  to  the  music  of  poetry,  whether  it  came 
to  us  in  the  flute-like  tones  of  the  sweet  south 
breathing  upon  a  bank  of  violets,  or  like  the 
deep  organ-pipe  of  the  ocean  when  it  breaks  in 
heavy  cadences  on  the  coast;  he  will  lead  us  no 
more  into  that  ideal  realm,  whose  golden  portals 
are  flung  wide  by  the  magic  of  genius,  to  reveal 
to  us  the  grand  figures  of  history  and  grander 
figures  than  history  has  ever  known,  men  of 
heroic  mould  and  colossal  passions  and  women 
as  fair  and  lovely  as  the  women  of  a  lover's 
dreams,  whom  it  is  a  rapture  to  see,  as  it  would 
be  an  education  to  know ;  and  we  shall  no  more 
feel  the  grasp  of  the  hand  whose  pulsations  were 
ever  fresh  and  warm  from  the  heart  He  is 
gone — gone  into  the  silent  land — and  how  im- 


was  read  by  Mr.  George  E.  Woodbury ;  music  was  furnished  by 
Walter  Damrosch,  director  of  the  New  York  Symphony  Orches 
tra,  and  brief  addresses  were  also  made  by  Tommaso  Salvini 
and  Henry  Irving.  The  eulogium  which  follows  was  spoken 
on  that  occasion. 


Edwin    Booth  67 

penetrable  and  still  it  is.  We  peer  into  its  dark 
ness  and  the  clouds  only  gather  and  thicken ; 
we  call  to  its  people,  and  they  answer  us  not 
again,  and  we  are  left  to  a  faith  that  often 
wavers  and  a  hope  that  often  sinks;  but  as  we 
walk  in  reverent  ignorance  backward  let  us  in 
dulge  the  hope  and  cherish  the  faith  as  better 
for  us,  perhaps,  as  a  moral  discipline  than  any 
clearer  knowledge. 

You  will  not  expect  me,  in  this  brief  hour 
of  communion,  to  present  you  a  detailed  biog 
raphy  of  Mr.  Booth,  or  any  elaborate  estimate  of 
his  character  and  career :  those  are  themes  for 
a  more  deliberate  occasion,  and  we  can  only 
glance  at  a  few  salient  points  which  commend 
him  to  public  remembrance.  It  would  seem  as 
if  he  had  been  dedicated  to  the  theatre  both  by 
outward  circumstances  and  inward  vocation.  If 
it  cannot  be  said  of  him,  as  our  venerable  and 
genial  President  has  said  of  himself,  that  he  was 
almost  born  upon  the  stage,  it  may  be  said  of 
him  that  he  was  cradled  within  sound  of  its 
plaudits,  and  nourished  upon  some  of  its  noblest 
traditions.  His  father,  Junius  Brutus  Booth,  was 
one  of  that  galaxy  of  actors  who  rose  on  the 
sunset  of  Garrick,  and  included  among  its  bright 
particular  stars  the  Kembles,  Henderson,  Cooke, 
Young,  Cooper,  Kean  and  Mrs.  Siddons  and  Miss 


68  Edwin    Booth 

O'Neill.  He  was,  indeed,  a  formidable  rival  of 
Kean,  to  whose  jealousy  he  owed  the  signal 
honor,  as  we  do  the  signal  advantage,  of  his 
transfer  from  the  metropolis  to  this  western 
wilderness.  For  many  years  he  was  the  one 
cometary  splendor  of  our  theatrical  skies,  and 
showed  the  way  to  a  host  of  luminaries  who 
have  since  dazzled  our  eyes,  without  paling  his 
effulgence.  For  if  the  younger  sort  in  those 
early  days  were  disposed  to  lose  themselves  in 
bursts  of  admiration  over  any  of  these,  the  older 
heads  would  simply  remark,  "  Ah,  yes !  very  well, 
very  well ;  but  have  you  ever  seen  Booth  ?  "  as 
if  that  were  at  once  the  climax  and  close  of  all 
possible  criticism. 

Well,  it  is  among  my  earliest  recollections  to 
have  seen  that  meteor,  as  he  flashed  across  the 
boards  of  the  old  Park  Theatre,  as  Richard  or 
Sir  Giles  or  Pescara,  when  I  was  too  young  to 
be  critical,  but  not  too  young  to  receive  an  in 
delible  impression  of  his  power  and  brilliancy. 
Like  Burbage,  Garrick  and  Kean,  he  was  small 
but  of  a  compact  figure,  with  a  commanding 
presence,  a  most  expressive  face  and  great  lumi 
nous  eyes  that  seemed  to  be  set  on  fire  from 
some  inner  volcanic  source.  His  voice  was  less 
liquid  than  that  of  his  son,  and  his  carriage  less 
dignified  and  graceful,  but  his  outbreaks  of  pas- 


Edwin    Booth  69 

sion,  whether  of  rage  or  pathos,  were  simply 
titanic.  In  hearing  them  one  could  readily  be 
lieve  the  stories  that  were  told  of  his  fellow  actors 
stopping  in  their  parts  to  gaze  upon  him  in  mute 
amazement  and  awe. 

Edwin  Booth,  the  fourth  son  of  this  eccentric 
genius,  inherited  many  of  his  best  qualities,  and 
added  to  them  others  that  tempered  their  inten 
sity  of  blaze  and  mellowed  the  excesses  of  their 
energy.  He  was  born  on  a  farm  near  Baltimore, 
in  Maryland,  which  the  father  had  procured  as 
a  retreat  from  the  glare  and  the  bustle  of  the 
footlights;  and  he  might  have  said,  with  more 
truth,  perhaps,  than  Owen  Glendower,  that, 

"  At  my  birth 


The  front  of  heaven  was  full  of  fiery  shapes " 

for  he  came  into  the  world  in  November  of  1833, 
during  that  meteoric  shower  of  the  1 3th,  which 
passed  as  phenomenal  into  the  annals  of  astron 
omy.  I  remember  it  distinctly,  when  we  students 
of  Princeton  rushed  out  into  the  night  to  see 
the  sky,  from  zenith  to  horizon,  on  every  side,  a 
sea  of  streaming  flame,  which  recalled  the  most 
high  and  palmy  state  of  Rome,  "  A  little  ere 
the  mightiest  Julius  fell,"  when 

"  Stars  with  trains  of  fire  and  dews  of  blood 
Disastered  the  sun," 


70  Edwin    Booth 

but  they  were  deemed  "  the  precursors  of  fierce 
events,"  while  these  in  the  milder  superstition 
of  the  negroes  augured  a  brilliant  destiny. 

More  important  to  the  new-comer  than  these 
exhalations  was  that  grand  drop  of  sunshine, 
the  farm,  where  his  limbs  were  nourished  by 
the  fresh  juices  of  the  earth,  his  lungs  expanded 
by  the  winds,  and  his  imagination  kindled  by 
the  shapes  and  shadows  of  the  darkling  wood. 
His  education  there  was  elementary  and  limited 
— a  little  while  at  a  lady's  school,  another  little 
while  under  a  foreign  teacher,  who  taught  him 
the  violin,  while  the  negroes  around  taught 
him  the  banjo,  and  a  less  while  if  any  at  a 
higher  academy.  Doubtless  the  father's  presence 
was  something  of  an  education  ;  for  he  was  a 
scholar  who  read  a  great  deal — an  expert  lin 
guist — at  least,  he  could  present  French  parts 
to  French  audiences  in  their  native  tongue — 
and  a  gentleman  of  taste,  who  lined  his  walls 
with  pictures  and  books.  But  any  education 
there  would  have  been  irregular,  considering 
the  habit  he  had  of  carrying  some  of  his  chil 
dren  on  his  theatrical  tours.  Edwin  told  me 
that  he  remembered  being  taken,  when  he  was 
but  five  or  six  years  old,  behind  the  scenes,  to 
await  the  exit  of  his  father,  who  would  then 
catch  him  in  his  arms,  caress  him  and  toss  him 


Edwin    Booth  7 1 

in  the  air,  repeating  some  nursery  tale  or  song, 
as  a  mode  of  relieving  the  tension  of  his  nerves. 

Under  these  influences  he  naturally  aspired 
to  the  stage,  and  a  playfellow  of  his  boyhood, 
who  remembers  him  as  a  curly-haired,  bright- 
eyed,  handsome  lad,  recalls  his  enthusiasm  in 
that  direction ;  but  he  always  insisted  that  he 
would  only  play  the  villains,  who  had  much  to 
do  and  to  say  for  themselves,  while  he  despised 
the  parts  of  lovers,  whom  he  regarded  as  milk 
sops.  In  that  the  incipient  tragedian  spoke. 
But  the  father  was  opposed  to  his  children 
going  upon  the  stage,  not  because  he  under 
estimated  his  profession,  but  because  he  doubted 
their  capacity  for  it.  And  once  in  reply  to  a 
remonstrance,  he  petulantly  exclaimed,  "  Well, 
let  them  play  the  banjo  between  the  acts." 

Edwin's  first  appearance,  in  1849,  when  he 
was  scarcely  seventeen,  was  by  accident — the 
failure  of  a  friend  whose  part  as  Tressel,  in 
Colley  Gibber's  mutilation  of  Richard  III.,  he 
assumed,  and  the  same  companion,  who  was 
present,  reports  that  while  he  carried  himself 
with  self-possession  and  dignity  he  was  inaudible 
at  the  middle  of  the  pit.  The  eminent  Rufus 
Choate,  a  warm  admirer  of  the  father,  was 
heard  to  remark  on  that  occasion  "  that  it  was 
a  great  pity  that  eminent  men  should  have 


72  Edwin    Booth 

such  mediocre  children."  Edwin,  however,  per 
severed,  and  got  himself  regularly  enlisted  in 
the  stock  company  at  the  remunerative  salary 
of  six  dollars  a  week,  which  he  was  glad  to 
get  whenever  he  could.  The  parental  objection 
seems  soon  to  have  disappeared,  for  he  was 
pushed  into  a  first  part  by  the  father  himself, 
who  refused,  in  1850,  to  appear  in  Richard, 
when  he  was  announced  for  it,  and  insisted  that 
Edwin  should  take  his  place.  This  was  at  the 
old  National  Theatre  in  this  city,  which  be 
came  the  Chatham  Street  Chapel,  where  in 
later  years  I  saw  an  Abolition  riot  that  was  a 
good  deal  livelier  than  any  play.  One  can 
easily  fancy  what  an  ordeal  it  must  have  been 
for  a  youth  of  eighteen  to  be  substituted  for 
the  most  famous  actor  of  the  day.  At  first  he 
was  received  with  some  murmurs,  but  gradually 
won  approval,  and  at  the  end  was  called  before 
the  curtain.  He  was  a  bit  elated  by  his  own 
success,  but  in  after  years  said  that  it  was  a 
mere  boyish  imitation  of  his  father,  and  exe 
crable  at  that.  It,  however,  settled  his  career, 
and  he  became  a  Thespian  for  the  rest  of  his 
days. 

But  his  novitiate,  or  apprenticeship,  passed  on 
the  outskirts  of  civilization,  was  a  rough  one,  be 
set  with  drudgery,  doubt  and  disaster.  California 


Edwin    Booth  73 

in  those  days  lay  like  a  luminous  golden  haze 
on  our  western  horizon,  and  thither  many  men 
turned  in  pursuit  of  fortune  or  fame.  Among 
them  the  father  and  son  crossed  the  pestilential 
isthmus  in  1852  in  high  hopes  of  success,  but 
destined  to  encounter  a  great  deal  of  hardship 
and  vicissitude.  The  father  soon  abandoned  San 
Francisco  for  New  Orleans,  and  died  on  his  way 
north,  leaving  the  son  behind  him  to  battle 
against  the  world  for  himself.  In  the  larger 
cities  on  the  coast  Edwin  did  tolerably  well,  but 
his  adventures  among  the  mining  camps  of  the 
foothills,  as  told  by  one  of  his  companions,  were 
full  of  grotesque  yet  painful  incidents.  They 
take  us  back  to  the  very  days  of  Shakespeare, 
when  the  licensed  companies,  driven  from  the 
metropolis  by  the  plague,  which  often  carried  off 
more  than  one-fifth  of  the  inhabitants,  rambled 
through  towns  and  villages,  to  exhibit  their  half- 
contraband  wares,  in  the  granges  of  farmers,  in 
the  back  yards  of  inns  or  in  booths  on  the 
open  plain ;  but  their  experiences  must  have 
been  luxurious  compared  to  those  which  gave 
to  Edwin  Booth  his  earliest  lessons.  What  with 
imprisonment  in  mountain  burgs  isolated  by 
snow  and  threatened  with  starvation ;  with  long 
tramps  of  thirty  or  fifty  miles  through  slush  and 
mud ;  with  the  cooking  of  their  own  food  or 


74  Edwin    Booth 

the  mending  of  their  own  clothes ;  with  per 
formances  on  boards  laid  across  the  billiard 
tables  of  saloons  or  on  the  trunks  of  fallen  trees  ; 
with  a  free  discharge  of  pistols  now  and  then  in 
the  midst  of  some  grand  scene  of  heroism  or 
love ;  and  with  a  final  return  to  the  coast  so 
utterly  penniless  as  to  render  a  resort  to  negro 
farces  or  a  local  travesty  a  necessary  alternative 
to  hopeless  want,  his  entrance  upon  his  career 
cannot  be  said  to  have  been  either  encouraging 
or  cheerful. 

Nor  was  the  outcome  much  better  of  a  voyage 
he  made  with  a  transient  company  to  the  islands 
of  the  South  Seas,  as  far  off  then  as  the  Antipo 
des  now  and  almost  quite  as  unknown.  For 
what  reason  they  went,  unless  it  was  to  confirm 
a  prophecy  of  Shakespeare  that  "  eyes  not  yet 
created  should  o'er  read  his  gentle  verse,"  it  is 
difficult  to  say;  but  they  played  in  Australia, 
Samoa  and  Hawaii,  sometimes  before  royal 
courts  which  probably  did  not  understand  a  word 
of  what  they  uttered,  but  more  often  to  a  frieze 
and  background  of  dusky  natives  in  full  para 
disaic  costume  and  intermittent  purses.  This  was 
in  1854.  On  the  return  to  California,  where  an 
accomplished  lady,  Mrs.  Forrest,  had  opened  a 
successful  theatre,  the  light  began  to  dawn  upon 
the  youthful  stroller,  and  he  was  enabled  to 


Edivin    Booth  7  5 

show  the  mettle  that  was  in  him,  and  by  a  few 
astonishing  hits  to  gather  the  means  of  getting 
back  to  the  East. 

These  six  novitiate  years  on  the  frontiers  of 
civilization,  acting  in  companies  picked  from 
the  roadside,  and  to  audiences  not  at  all  exact 
ing  or  refined  in  their  demands,  were  years  rather 
of  drudgery,  and  of  crude  and  careless  work  than 
of  education  or  discipline.  They  were  years  of 
apprenticeship  and  required  severe  labor  and 
endurance,  but  did  not  impart  the  nicer  quali 
ties  of  culture.  Yet  they  were  not  wholly  fruit 
less.  He  acquired  by  them  the  mere  mechanical 
tricks  of  his  trade.  They  familiarized  him  with 
the  scene,  developed  his  voice,  infused  self-con 
fidence,  and  perhaps  awakened  a  higher  ambition. 
On  his  return  to  the  East  in  1856,  arduous  trials 
awaited  him  there,  which  proved,  however,  both 
educative  and  disciplinary.  They  opened  his 
eyes  to  the  defects  of  his  old  imitative  and  tra 
ditional  methods,  and  threw  him  back  upon  native 
original  methods,  and  his  better  judgment.  De 
ficient  in  early  cultivation,  and  misled  by  the 
accepted  models  of  the  times,  he  had  to  unlearn 
much  that  he  had  learned,  and  to  learn  much 
that  he  did  not  know.  He  did  not  leap  to  the 
top  at  once — nobody  ever  does — but  had  to  climb 
to  it,  through  thickets  and  thorns,  with  an  occa- 


7 '6  Edwin    Booth 

sional  tumble  on  the  rocks.  Even  after  he  had 
ventured  an  appeal  to  the  cultivated  taste  of 
Boston,  and  been  approved,  a  foreign  actress  with 
whom  he  played  refused  to  go  on  because  of  his 
ungainly  and  awkward  ways.  In  contrast  is  the 
fact  that  when  he  played  with  Miss  Cushman  in 
Macbeth  she  differed  so  widely  from  his  refined 
and  intellectual  conception  of  the  character  as 
to  beg  him  to  "  remember  that  Macbeth  was  the 
great  ancestor  of  all  the  Bowery  villains."  But 
Mr.  Booth  was  not  too  conceited  or  too  indif 
ferent  to  learn ;  he  read  widely  and  carefully ; 
he  observed  constantly  and  closely ;  and  he  was 
wise  enough  to  put  aside  his  faults  when  they 
were  discovered  to  him,  even  when  they  were 
pointed  out  by  unfriendly  criticism.  Perhaps  the 
acquaintanceship  that  he  formed  at  this  time  here 
in  New  York  with  a  considerable  number  of 
young  artists  and  literary  men  (now  past  masters 
in  fame),  who  had  been  attracted  to  him  by  his 
rare  modesty  and  unquestionable  genius,  may  have 
helped  to  awaken  his  ambition  for  the  highest 
places. 

He  began,  however,  at  the  bottom,  with  the 
study  of  details.  He  recalled  that  Garrick,  who 
to  a  mind  that  attracted  Burke,  Johnson,  Gold 
smith,  and  Reynolds,  added  accomplishments  that 
fascinated  the  multitude,  was  a  most  sedulous 


Edwin    Booth  77 

student  in  courts,  on  the  streets,  in  asylums,  and 
booths,  of  features,  gestures,  walk,  and  tone ;  that 
Kean,  apparently  the  most  impulsive  actor  that 
had  ever  appeared,  yet  when  preparing  for  Lear 
had  practised  before  a  glass,  night  after  night, 
demanding  repeated  rehearsals,  and  even  mark 
ing  his  positions,  his  recoils  and  his  advances,  on 
the  stage  in  chalk,  and  he  followed  their  exam 
ples.  Anybody  who  will  read  his  notes  to  Fur- 
ness's  Variorum  Edition  of  Othello  will  remark 
the  importance  he  attached  to  every  movement, 
every  expression  of  face,  every  tone  of  the  voice. 
Even  his  own  performances  were  constant  objects 
of  observation,  with  a  view  to  their  improvement. 
Once  when  I  praised  him  highly  on  his  Macbeth, 
of  which  I  had  formed  conceptions,  derived  from 
the  performance  of  Macready,  with  whom,  next 
to  Werner,  it  was  his  best,  he  replied  :  "  It  is 
only  a  study,  but  I  think  I  can  make  something 
of  it  yet."  At  another  time,  happening  into  his 
room  about  noon,  I  found  him  prostrate  on  the 
sofa,  half  out  of  breath,  and  covered  with  per 
spiration,  and  exclaimed  :  "  Not  ill,  I  hope  ;  "  and 
he  replied:  "No;  it  is  that  abominable  speech. 
I  have  been  practising  it  all  the  morning.  I  have 
shouted  it  and  screeched  it.  I  have  roared  it 
and  mumbled  it,  and  whispered  it,  but  it  will 
not  come  right."  None  the  less,  I  observed 


78  Edwin    Booth 

afterward  that  this  very  speech  was  so  far  right 
as  to  bring  down  a  triple  bob  major  of  applause. 

This  attention  to  detail  seems,  perhaps,  me 
chanical,  and  it  would  be  mechanical  if  regarded 
as  an  end  alone,  and  not  a  means  ;  but  it  is  no 
more  mechanical  than  the  painter's  study  of  his 
chalk  drawing,  from  which  he  never  deviates  and 
yet  fills  out  with  all  the  glory  of  color  and  form. 
It  is  no  more  mechanical  than  the  metres  and 
rhythms  the  poet  observes  in  order  to  reach  the 
heights  of  poetic  beauty  and  grandeur ;  it  is  no 
more  mechanical  than  the  inexorable  laws  of 
counterpoint  which  the  musician  obeys  if  he 
would  delight  the  world  with  the  loveliness  of  a 
chorus  in  Lohengrin,  or  with  the  sublime, 
cherubic,  heavenly  harmonies  of  a  concerto  in  C 
minor.  Genius  is,  of  course,  the  main  thing ;  its 
intuitions  and  sympathies  are  the  prime  movers, 
the  breath  of  life,  the  source  of  all  grand  effects  ; 
but  genius  itself  can  only  work  by  instruments, 
and  when  it  mounts  its  winged  Pegasus,  or  drives 
the  courser  of  the  sun,  it  must  still  guide  its 
steed  by  snaffle  and  bit.  Mr.  Booth  had  the 
genius,  but  he  had  no  less  the  judgment,  the 
taste  and  the  will  to  put  an  end  to  its  mere  cur- 
vetings  and  prancings,  and  to  direct  it  toward  its 
triumphal  goals. 

Mr.  Booth's   range    of    impersonation    during 


Edwin    Booth  79 

these  later  six  years  of  journey  work,  when  he 
began  to  be  recognized  as  "  the  hope  of  the  liv 
ing  drama  "  (to  use  Barrett's  phrase) — but  not 
yet  its  full  realization — was  quite  broad,  com 
prising  both  comic  and  tragic  characters,  some 
thirty  in  all.  But  he  was  more  effective  in 
tragedy  than  comedy,  though  not  deficient  in  the 
latter.  Those  of  you  who  saw  his  Benedick,  his 
Petruchio  and  the  lighter  scenes  of  Ruy  Bias 
and  Don  Caesar  de  Bazan,  will  remember  the 
extreme  delicacy  and  grace  of  his  comic  delin 
eations,  which  never  degenerated  into  farce  or 
buffoonery.  If  at  times,  in  private  life,  among 
intimate  friends,  he  was,  like  Yorick,  "a  fellow  of 
infinite  jest,"  the  humor  which  opens  fountains  of 
tears  seemed  to  be  more  suited  to  his  habitual 
temperament  and  tone  of  thought  than  that  which 
ripples  the  face  with  smiles.  As  he  grew  older 
and  more  experienced  he  gravitated  by  a  sort  of 
native  affinity  towards  the  grander  and  more 
severe  creations  of  Shakespeare — Lear,  Hamlet, 
Macbeth,  the  two  Richards,  Othello,  lago,  Brutus, 
Cassius,  Antony,  and  Wolsey — but  not,  if  I  re 
member  rightly,  Coriolanus  or  the  Egyptian  An 
tony.  Now  and  then  he  strayed  into  other  fields 
and  gave  us  masterly  representations  of  Richelieu, 
Pescara,  Sir  Giles  and  Bertuccio,  and  yet  he 
seems  to  have  avoided,  purposely,  Virginius, 


8o  Edwin    Booth 

Damon,  Pizarro,  and  the  Gladiator,  as  perhaps  a 
little  too  sentimentally  ad  captandum  for  the  true 
artist.  It  was  to  Shakespeare  he  mainly  aspired, 
and  through  him  won  the  place,  which  he  held 
for  thirty  years,  of  the  foremost  American  actor. 
He  had  many  worthy  rivals,  few,  if  any,  equals ; 
certainly  no  superiors.  His  most  formidable  com 
petitor,  Mr.  Edwin  Forrest,  for  whom  he  was 
partly  named,  a  superb  and  impressive  performer, 
was,  through  age  and  infirmity,  falling  into  "the 
sere  and  yellow  leaf"  when  Booth  was  in  the 
prime  of  vigor  and  bloom.  It  may  be  that  Mr. 
Forrest's  growing  fondness  for  certain  native 
tragedies,  in  which  declamation  took  the  place  of 
poetry,  or  a  cut-and-dried  type  of  character  that 
of  real  nature,  may  have  separated  him  somewhat 
from  the  currents  in  which  aesthetic  judgment  was 
beginning  to  run. 

It  is  the  highest  eulogy  one  can  pronounce 
upon  an  English  actor  to  say  that  his  master 
pieces  of  performance  were  the  masterpieces  of 
Shakespeare's  creation,  for  they  imply  more  than 
the  ordinary  requirements  of  a  good  performer. 
These  are  manifold  and  of  a  high  order,  physical, 
intellectual,  emotional  and  volitional,  and  these 
Mr.  Booth  possessed  in  a  large  measure,  and  he 
improved  them  by  study  and  self-discipline. 
Small  in  stature,  he  was  yet  compact  and  well- 


Edwin    Booth  8l 

proportioned  in  build,  and  he  carried  himself  with 
a  rare  dignity  and  grace,  so  that  his  poses  were 
always  statuesque  and  his  motions  like  the  wave 
of  the  bending  corn.  His  mobile  features,  lighted 
by  large  lustrous  eyes,  made  his  face  not  merely 
handsome,  but  exceedingly  expressive ;  while  his 
voice,  clear  as  a  bell,  and  loud  as  a  trumpet,  ran 
through  the  whole  gamut  of  vocal  utterance, 
marrying  sweetness  to  sonorousness  of  sound 
without  a  jar.  But  to  these  mere  outer  gifts  he 
joined  rapidity  and  ease  of  emotional  excitement, 
and,  more  important  than  the  rest,  a  depth  and 
breadth  of  intelligence  which  together  enabled 
him  to  apprehend  the  most  subtle  as  well  as  far- 
reaching  thought  of  his  author,  and  to  respond 
to  his  sentiment  as  the  musical  chord  does  to 
the  pulsations  of  the  air. 

His  eminence  in  the  Shakespeare  circle  was 
due  to  his  possession  of  the  latter  qualities.  The 
great  Master  differs  from  all  other  dramatic 
writers  in  many  respects,  but  in  two  respects 
particularly,  which  put  to  the  final  test  the  powers 
of  the  actor.  The  first  of  these  is  his  marvelous 
insight  into  what  Tennyson  called  "  The  abysmal 
deeps  of  personality."  Other  writers  are  apt  to 
delineate  their  personages  from  the  outside,  as 
embodying  solely  some  imperious  passion,  or  as 
charged  with  some  one  transcendent  mission, 


82  Edwin    Booth 

which  is  to  be  presented,  as  the  cannon  ball  flies, 
in  an  undeviating  line.  Among  the  ancients,  for 
example,  no  one  can  mistake  as  to  what  Aga 
memnon,  Antigone,  or  Orestes  has  to  do,  or  how 
it  is  to  be  done ;  amid  the  pomp  of  the  language 
the  way  is  always  clear.  Even  among  the  more 
romantic  moderns,  no  one  disputes  as  to  what 
Karl  Moor,  Don  Carlos,  Egmont,  Hernani,  or 
Triboulet  means  ;  nearly  all  actors  would  present 
them  in  the  same  way.  But  Shakespeare's  per 
sons  are  not  so  easily  grasped,  not  because  they 
are  purposely  or  bunglingly  obscure,  but  because 
they  are  at  once  so  very  deep  and  so  very  broad. 
In  other  words,  while  most  writers  write  from 
the  surface  Shakespeare  writes  from  the  inmost 
center  outward  to  the  periphery,  where  he  touches 
life  on  every  side.  His  characters,  therefore,  are 
so  involved  in  the  infinite  intricacies  of  inward 
motive  and  caprice,  and  so  bound  up  with  the 
incessant  complexities  and  cross-play  of  outward 
circumstances  that  they  must  be  studied  closely 
and  time  and  again  to  learn  what  they  are.  No 
body  gets  them  at  a  glance.  They  are  too  pro 
found  to  be  fathomed  by  the  eye  alone,  and  too 
many-sided  to  be  taken  in  by  any  single  sym 
pathy.  Besides,  while  they  are  such  complete 
and  consistent  individualities,  growing  from  youth 
to  age,  that  one  has  told  of  the  girlhood  of 


Edwin    Booth  83 

Shakespeare's  heroines,  and  another  of  the  after- 
wedded  life  of  Benedick  and  Beatrice,  of  Imo 
gen  and  Posthumus,  of  Isabella  and.  the  Duke, 
they  are  yet  types  of  permanent  and  universal 
humanity,  and  to  be  interpreted,  as  the  living 
man  is,  by  a  scale  which  widens  and  deepens  as 
our  own  hearts  and  minds  grow  in  experience 
and  insight  Two  hundred  years  of  the  astutest 
comment  have  not  yet  indicated  their  full  sig 
nificance. 

The  other  trait  of  the  great  Master,  an  actor 
should  always  bear  in  mind,  is  the  exuberance 
of  his  poetic  nature,  which  exudes  in  words, 
diction,  rhythm,  scene,  personage  and  story. 
Goethe  was  much  reproached  for  having  said 
once  that  Shakespeare  was  much  more  of  a 
poet  than  he  was  of  a  dramatist,  by  which  he 
merely  meant  that  the  poet  was  primary  and 
predominant  while  the  playwright  was  second 
ary.  In  other  words,  poetry  is  the  very  atmos 
phere  in  which  he  lives.  He  nowhere  restricts 
himself,  as  Henry  James  accuses  the  great 
French  authors  of  doing,  to  the  multitudinous 
glaring  outside  life  of  the  senses.  He  was  as 
open  as  ever  man  was  to  every  skyey  and 
every  earthy  influence,  but  through  all  these  he 
saw  "  the  deeper,  stronger,  subtler  inward  life, 
the  wonderful  adventures  of  the  soul."  What- 


84  Edwin    Booth 

ever  theme  he  touches,  though  in  itself  com 
monplace  and  unpleasing,  he  steeps  in  the  color 
of  his  fancy,  and  he  scatters  the  color  over  all 
surrounding  objects.  Like  a  bird,  he  dips  his 
wings  in  fetid  pools  only  to  disperse  the  water- 
drops  in  showers  of  pearls.  Whatever  story  he 
tells  or  passion  he  betrays,  though  in  them 
selves  repellant  or  even  hideous,  he  purges 
them  of  their  grossness  and  lifts  them  into  an 
air  of  ideal  freshness.  Like  Niagara — which  in 
its  maddest  plunge  and  loudest  roar  still  waves 
the  iridescent  banner  of  its  rainbow,  and  still 
sends  up  to  the  skies  its  mist-columns  of  dia 
monds — he  raises  his  scenes,  which  in  their 
literal  nakedness  might  shock  us  with  horror, 
up  to  the  purer  and  serener  heights  of  the 
ideal,  where  ^Eschylus  not  only  heard  the 
groans  of  the  incestuous  king  and  saw  the  wild- 
eyed  furies  in  pursuit  of  Orestes,  but  heard, 
too,  the  thunder-tones  of  destiny  and  saw  the 
dread  forms  of  the  immortals. 

Mr.  Booth  grew  to  be  keenly  apprehensive 
of  the  characteristics  of  the  Master,  and  studied 
them  closely  and  brought  them  out  as  he  best 
could  into  more  and  more  distinctness  and 
vividness.  His  representations,  as  he  advanced, 
while  they  showed  a  closer  analysis  of  charac 
ter,  which  is  a  mark  of  thought,  conveyed  at 


Edwin    Booth  85 

the  same  time  that  higher  ideal  value  which  is 
the  essence  of  poetry.  He  seerns  to  penetrate 
more  and  more  into  the  interior  significance  of 
his  personages  by  discerning  more  fully  what 
was  universal  in  them  and  so  of  permanent 
interest  to  humanity.  Thus  his  King  Lear, 
which  in  the  beginning  was  the  traditional 
King  Lear,  an  irascible  old  man  liable  to 
sudden  and  fearful  explosions  of  wrath,  and 
who  did  many  foolish  things,  gradually  became 
the  type  of  imperious  arbitrary  will  under 
mining  its  own  force,  dispersing  families  and 
disrupting  kingdoms  through  sheer  caprice,  and 
an  exponent,  not  of  a  particular  history,  but  of 
a  universal  truth  of  human  nature.  Thus  Ham 
let,  whom  he  once  wrote  of  as  an  "  unbalanced 
genius,"  was  raised  afterwards  to  the  perfection 
of  manhood,  who,  charged  with  an  imperative 
duty  it  was  impossible  to  execute,  fell  by  the 
corrosive  and  destructive  action  of  his  own 
thoughts  into  distraction  and  madness,  and 
brought  down  a  whole  beautiful  world  with  his 
own  ruin  amidst  a  sound  of  wrangling  bells. 
Thus  Macbeth,  on  the  surface  a  heartless  and 
sanguinary  tyrant  who  butchers  his  best  friends 
and  deluges  his  estates  with  blood,  is  shown  to 
us  in  the  end  as  infinitely  more  than  that :  as 
the  victim  of  that  irritable  imaginativeness  which, 


86  Edwin    Booth 

dealing  with  the  darker  powers,  whelms  reason, 
nature,  conscience  and  affection  in  a  vortex  of 
hell-born  dreams. 

In    the   last   two    impersonations,    it    may   be 
perhaps  well  to  observe,  Mr.  Booth  was  assisted 
by  a  peculiarity  of  his  own  constitution,  which 
lent    them   singular   truth    and   awesomeness.     I 
refer  to  his  openness  to  those  darker  and  more 
mysterious  aspects  of  life  which  have  been  called 
the  night    side    of   nature.     He    was    peculiarly 
sensitive  to  the  hidden,  subtle,  boding,  unfamiliar 
influences    of  that    unknown    and   unfathomable 
ocean  which  rolls  on  the  outside  of  our  habitual 
and    fixed    experiences.      He   was    at    one    time 
deeply  interested  in  certain  abnormal  phenomena 
which  are  called  spiritualism,  and,  indeed,  in  the 
jargon  of  its  adepts  he  was  considered  a  medium. 
Certainly  he  could    tell    some   strange  tales  now 
and  then  of  his  unconscious  cerebral  excitements. 
But  the  only  practical  effect  they  had  upon  his 
conduct,  so  far  as  I  could  observe,  was  to  deepen 
the  awfulness  of  his  representations  of  personages 
who  had   walked    on    the    border    lands   of    the 
unseen.      His    Hamlet,    whatever  the   passion  or 
occupation  of  the  moment,  was  always    haunted 
by  the  dread  vision  that    came    to    him    on    the 
ramparts    of   Elsinore,    and    Macbeth    was    ever 
accompanied  by  the  fatal    sisters    whose    super- 


Edwin    Booth  87 

natural  soliciting  pushed  him  on  while  they  con 
soled  him  in  his  immeasurable  atrocities. 

It  was  a  consequence  of  Mr.  Booth's  careful 
study  of  his  Shakespearian  parts  that  he  gradu 
ally  refined  his  modes  of  rendering  them  out  of 
the  old  boisterous,  objurgatory  and  detonating 
style  into  one  more  gentle,  and  therefore,  as  I 
think,  more  artistic.  He  was  at  no  period  defi 
cient  in  force  and  intensity  of  expression.  His 
curses  in  Lear  fell  like  avalanches  from  Alpen 
heights  when  a  storm  is  on  the  hill;  his  alter 
nations  from  joy  to  rage  in  Shylock  throbbed 
and  glowed  with  the  red-heat  of  molten  iron  ; 
the  lament  of  Othello  was  like  the  moan  of  an 
archangel  for  a  heaven  betrayed  and  lost,  ending 
in  that  remorseful  cry,  which  "  shivered  to  the 
tingling  stars  ;  "  and  I  have  heard  him  utter  the 
simple  phrase  in  the  graveyard  scene,  "  What ! 
the  poor  Ophelia,"  with  such  heartbreaking  pathos 
that  whole  rows  of  women,  and  of  men  too,  took 
to  their  handkerchiefs.  But  he  never  found  it 
necessary,  at  least  in  his  later  days,  in  order  to 
get  his  feeling  understood,  to  shriek  like  a  maniac 
or  to  howl  like  a  wounded  wolf.  He  had  taken 
to  heart  what  the  great  Master,  who  could  not 
be  accused  of  tameness  or  frigidity,  and  who  was 
doubtless  as  good  a  critic  as  he  was  a  dramatist, 
had  long  since  taught  us  in  "  the  very  torrent, 


88  Edwin    Booth 

tempest,    and    whirlwind    of  passion,  to   beget  a 
temperance  that  must  give  it  smoothness." 

He  had  learned    in    particular    two  phases  of 
emotional  expression,  which    I    do    not   suppose 
were  original  with  him,  but  which  are  very  im 
portant  and  require  the  utmost  skill  and  delicacy 
of  management.     The   first    may    be    called   the 
ascending  phase  of  emotion,  in  which  every  strong 
passion  fosters  and  aggravates  itself,  so  that,  be 
ginning  on  the  low  level  of  excitement,  it  rises 
by  its  own  self-governed  vehemence  to  a  violent 
intensity.     It   was    displayed    by    Mr.   Booth  in 
several  passages  of  Hamlet,  where,  in  spite  of  the 
strongest  efforts  of  self-restraint,  he  is  gradually 
carried  away  by  the  movements  of  his  brain,  and 
finally  loses  himself  in    a   frenzy  that  passes  for 
madness.    The  other  phase  of  expression  to  which 
I    have   referred,  and   which    may  be  called  the 
descending  phase,  exhibits  a  towering  passion  in 
its   subsidence.     It   is  said    to  have  been  one  of 
the  master-strokes  of  Kean,  who,  though  fond  of 
abrupt    transitions — that   is,    from    transports    of 
frenzy  to  calmness  or  even  sportiveness — was  yet 
artist  enough  to  know  that  this  was  not  always 
natural,    and    so   at   times    came    down  from  his 
extreme  heights    by    gradations    of  fall,  like  the 
waves  of  the  sea  which  still  heave  and  swell  when 
the  tempest  is  wholly  past  away.     This  effect  was 


Edwin    Booth  \  89 

grandly  given  by  Mr.  Booth  in  Lear,  whose  tre 
mendous  discharges  of  anger  are  followed  by 
sudden  returns  to  patience  and  self-control,  when 
his  voice  assumed  to  be  calm,  and  his  face  ap 
peared  to  be  smooth,  but  the  twitching  muscles 
and  the  tremulous  tones  gave  proof  that  the  pas 
sion  had  not  yet  vanished. 

It  should  always  be  borne  in  mind  that  it  is 
not  the  aim  of  dramatic  art,  whether  in  author 
ship  or  representation,  to  bring  forth  monsters, 
either  fiends,  or  freaks,  or  wild  beasts.  It  pre 
sents  us  human  beings,  swayed  even  to  madness 
in  the  intensity  of  their  passions,  but  still  human 
beings.  Even  in  its  most  abnormal  departures 
from  the  human  type,  as  in  Caliban,  they  have 
still  many  touches  of  human  nature  in  them, 
which  they  show,  if  in  no  other  way,  by  speak 
ing  its  language,  and  at  times  uttering  the  most 
exquisite  poetry.  The  drama,  as  Schiller  says, 
"must  unveil  crime  in  its  deformity,  and  place 
it  before  the  eyes  of  men  in  all  its  colossal  mag 
nitude  ;  it  must  diligently  explore  its  dark  snares 
and  become  familiar  with  sentiments  at  the  wick 
edness  of  which  the  soul  revolts ;  "  but  in  doing 
so  it  does  not  cut  itself  loose  from  all  semblance 
of  manhood.  Otherwise  its  personages  would 
excite,  not  pity  and  terror,  but  horror.  Richard, 
lago,  Shylock,  Macbeth,  do  diabolical  things, 


90  Edwin    Booth 

but  they  are  none  the  less  men,  perverted  by 
evil,  hardened  by  crime,  wholly  bent  away  from 
goodness  and  truth,  and  yet  capable  of  both 
goodness  and  truth,  and  at  their  worst  exhibit 
ing,  perhaps,  masterly  intellect,  heroic  courage, 
sublime  defiance,  strong  affection — are  like  Mil 
ton's  fallen  angels,  <k  the  excess  of  glory  ob 
scured." 

An  open  secret  of  Mr.  Booth's  success  was 
the  high  conception  he  had  formed  and  cherished 
of  the  dignity  and  usefulness  of  the  theatrical 
function.  Pained  at  times  by  the  perversions  of 
it  in  bad  hands,  he  was  yet  not  ashamed  of  his 
profession ;  nor  did  he  suppose,  as  Macready 
appears  to  have  done  in  later  life,  that  he  would 
have  been  better  and  happier  in  some  other 
walk.  On  the  contrary,  he  was  proud  of  it,  and 
rejoiced  in  his  ability  to  serve  it,  and  through  it, 
the  highest  interests  of  the  public.  He  was  not 
insensible  of  its  degradations,  actual  and  pos 
sible,  but  he  knew  that  it  is  precisely  those 
things  in  our  human  nature  which  fall  the  low 
est  that  are  capable  of  the  highest.  He  knew 
that  dramatic  literature  is  the  highest  form  of 
intellectual  achievement,  and  that  the  stage  is 
the  means  by  which  it  is  most  vividly  interpreted 
and  most  widely  diffused.  In  a  general  sense  the 
principal  aim  of  all  art  is  to  please,  but  we 


Edwin    Booth  9 1 

should  remember  that  that  pleasure  ranges  from 
the  merest  trivial  amusement  of  the  moment  to 
that  which  Dryden  calls  noble  pleasure,  which 
interests  alike  and  at  once  the  intellect,  the  con 
science,  the  imagination,  the  passions,  and  the 
sensibilities  in  their  finest  and  sweetest  exercises, 
and  leaves  traces  of  exaltation  that  go  sounding 
through  the  soul  for  ever.  Even  in  its  lightest 
forms,  the  pleasure  produced  by  the  histrionic 
art  is  not  to  be  despised.  The  play — impulse, 
as  Schiller  calls  it,  in  which  it  originates,  and 
which  gives  rise  to  the  delicious  pranks  of  chil 
dren  and  the  merry  sports  and  pastimes  of  the 
common  people,  is  that  instinct  of  human  nature 
which  lifts  it  out  of  the  hard  grind  of  necessity 
— whether  physical  or  moral — and  surrenders  it 
to  the  joy  of  a  disinterested  freedom.  Not  only 
does  it  "  ease  the  anguish  of  the  torturing  hour," 
but  it  is  the  main  support — the  generator  and 
the  regenerator — of  whatever  is  most  healthful 
and  wholesome  in  the  exercise  of  our  faculties. 
In  common  parlance,  we  name  it  recreation,  for 
getting  often  that  recreation  is  simply  re-creation 
— or  the  making  over  of  that  which  is  worn,  and 
not  something  fresh  and  new.  Talleyrand  used 
to  say  that  the  arrantest  nonsense  is  very  refresh 
ing,  and  Shakespeare,  in  one  of  his  eulogies  of 
merriment,  asserts  that  it  both  relieves  the  wear 


92  Edwin    Booth 

and  the  woe  of  life,  and  cures  some  of  its  afflic 
tions.  In  this  he  anticipated  the  doctrine  of 
modern  science,  which  teaches  that  pleasurable 
excitements  build  up  the  nervous  system  and 
maintain  it  in  health  and  growth,  while  depres 
sion,  despondency,  or  sorrow — any  form  of  pain, 
in  fact — wastes  it  away  and  ends  in  its  total 
destruction.  Assuredly  we  all  of  us  know  that 
a  sound,  hearty  laugh  clears  the  cobwebs  from 
the  brain  and  elevates  the  whole  being  into  a 
more  serene  and  invigorating  air.  But  if  that  be 
true  of  our  lower  enjoyments,  what  shall  be  said 
of  the  recuperative  power  of  the  higher  sort 
which  appeals  at  once  and  in  harmonious  union 
to  those  lofty  capacities  which  are  the  distin 
guishing  marks  of  humanity — which,  separating 
man  from  every  other  form  of  existence,  make 
him  what  he  is,  the  crown  and  consummation  of 
creation — the  paragon  of  animals — the  beauty  of 
the  world — and  infinitely  grander  than  all  "  this 
brave  o'erhanging  firmament,"  with  its  "  majes- 
tical  roof  fretted  with  golden  fire." 

Now,  dramatic  art,  as  I  have  said,  appropri 
ates  to  itself  the  excellences  of  all  other  forms 
of  art,  and  supplements  them  with  excellences 
of  its  own.  It  abounds  in  that  prose  which  is 
"  full  of  wise  saws  and  modern  instances  "  ;  its 
nai've  and  racy  songs  furnish  the  best  specimens 


Edwin    Booth  93 

of  lyric  enthusiasm  ;  it  rivals  the  solemn  epic  in 
the  grandeur  of  its  stories,  and,  not  satisfied  with 
speech,  it  calls  in  as  its  assistants  and  handmaids 
the  imposing  splendors  of  architecture  to  build 
its  temples,  of  sculpture  and  painting  to  adorn 
them,  of  eloquence  to  add  charm  to  its  utter 
ances,  and  of  the  delicious  exhilarations  of  music, 
to  bear  the  spirit  on  harmonious  wings  to  elysian 
homes.  Like  other  literature,  it  rummages  the 
ages  for  its  themes ;  it  turns  over  the  dusty 
leaves  of  chronicle  and  annalist  for  its  persons, 
filling  in  their  gaps  of  forgetfulness ;  but,  more 
than  this,  by  its  marvellous  power  of  character 
ization,  it  clothes  the  skeletons  of  the  dead  past 
in  flesh  and  blood,  and  presents  them  to  us  in 
their  very  habits  as  they  lived.  A  thousand 
buried  majesties  revisit  the  glimpses  of  the  moon; 
the  colossal  demigods  of  old  mythologies  that 
helped  to  shape  the  primal  choas — the  noble 
masters  of  antiquity,  whose  words  have  given  law 
to  the  arts  and  policies  of  all  future  time — the 
chivalric  champions  of  the  oppressed  and  of 
womanhood  in  the  middle  ages — even  the  un 
known  heroes  and  heroines  of  domestic  life,  to 
say  nothing  of  the  fantastic  little  tricksters  of 
faery,  who  win  our  loves,  revive,  and  we  are 
made  acquainted  with  men  grander  than  any  in 
actual  history,  and  with  women  fairer  than  our 


94  Edwin    Booth 

visionary  seraphs,  and  lovelier  than  our  legend 
ary  saints,  in  that  they  are  real  women  breath 
ing  thoughtful  breath. 

It  is  not  merely  the  defence,  it  is  the  justifi 
cation,  nay,  it  is  the  pre-eminent  glory  of  the 
theatre,  that  it  is  the  great  popular  interpreter 
of  this  creative  inspiration — the  channel  through 
which  its  rare  and  exquisite  treasures  are  con 
veyed  to  the  minds  of  the  people.  The  lofty 
achievements  of  the  human  brain  and  heart,  in 
nearly  every  other  domain — its  great  poems,  its 
great  histories,  its  great  systems  of  thought,  its 
great  pictures,  and  its  great  music,  are  a  closed 
book  to  the  masses.  They  are  richly  laden 
argosies  that  sail  on  the  unseen  ether  of  the 
skies,  and  not  on  the  ordinary  atmosphere.  Few 
see  them  but  those  who  have  the  opulence  and 
the  leisure  to  climb  the  golden  step  to  the  stars. 
They  are  an  unknown  realm — and  how  sad  the 
thought ! — to  the  vast  majority  of  mankind  even 
in  most  cultivated  nations.  But  the  theatre 
brings  the  gold  and  the  jewels  of  its  Ophir 
mines  of  genius  home  to  the  bosom  of  nearly 
every  class — one  might  add,  of  nearly  every  in 
dividual.  It  is  the  one  institution  of  society 
which  may  be  said  to  be,  in  the  strict  sense  of  the 
word,  popular.  Other  institutions  touch  the 
sensibilities,  or  tastes,  or  interests  and  rouse  the 


Edwin    Booth  95 

souls  of  selected  circles,  but  this  goes  directly 
to  the  sensibilities  and  rouses  the  souls  of  all. 
Consider,  too,  how  incessant  and  wide  are  its 
influences.  Victor  Hugo  has  compared  it  to  the 
ancient  Tribune  whence  the  orators  fulmined 
over  Greece,  and  to  the  modern  Pulpit,  which 
drops  its  heavenly  messages  in  "  rills  of  oily 
eloquence,"  but  it  has  an  immense  advantage 
over  either  of  these  in  its  almost  unbroken  ac 
tivity  through  space  as  well  as  in  time.  Every 
night  in  the  week,  in  nearly  every  town  and 
city  of  civilization,  it  is  telling  its  tales  and  teach 
ing  its  lessons  of  good  or  ill,  and  the  Press  alone 
surpasses  it  in  the  immediate  reach  and  con 
stancy  of  its  work. 

And  what  is  that  work  ?  Nothing  less  than 
the  whole  sphere  of  human  relations,  which  is 
precisely  the  sphere  of  our  ethical  being.  It 
deals  directly,  almost  exclusively,  with  the  con 
duct  of  man  to  man,  and  morality  is  the  breath 
of  its  life.  It  is  essentially  a  moral  force,  a  tre 
mendous  agency  for  good  or  evil.  Scientists  tell 
us  that  while  there  are  evidences  of  a  vast  phys 
ical  order  in  the  external  world  there  are  no  evi 
dences  of  a  moral  order  there.  The  grand  forces  of 
nature,  regardless  of  man  or  his  desires,  drive  the 
wheels  of  their  chariots  over  his  universe  axle-deep 
in  blood.  Historians  tell  us  that  the  final  adjust- 


g6  Edwin    Booth 

ments  of  events,  the  rewards  of  good,  and  the  ret 
ributions  of  evils  are  far  apart  in  space,  remote  in 
time,  and  seldom  observed,  or  not  observed  in 
the  end  by  men  who  saw  the  beginning,  or,  as 
Horace  says,  "  the  flying  criminal  is  only  limp- 
ingly  followed  by  the  retributive  blow."  But  it  is 
not  so  in  the  little  world  of  the  drama,  where  the 
consequences  of  conduct  are  near,  open,  and 
swift.  Dramatic  art  controls  the  season  of  its  own 
harvests,  hangs  its  nemeses  on  the  neck  of  its 
events,  and  freights  the  lightning- flashes  of  its 
auguries  with  the  rattling  thunder-peals  of  their 
fulfillment. 

Such  an  agency  is  not  to  be  neglected,  much 
less  derided,  and  especially  by  those  who  take  the 
moral  and  religious  interests  of  society  into  their 
special  keeping;  nor  are  the  actual  conductors 
of  it  to  be  held  up  to  derision,  and  excluded  from 
the  mercies  of  the  All-merciful,  as  they  were  but 
an  age  ago.  They  are  to  be  prized,  as  others  are 
prized,  by  the  faithful  discharge  of  their  function. 
If  their  shortcomings  in  the  past  have  been  lam 
entable,  which  of  the  professions  shall  throw  the 
first  stone  ?  None  the  less  let  us  hold  them  to 
their  responsibilities,  and  remind  them  constantly 
of  what  an  almost  omnipotent  means  of  human 
elevation  they  wield;  and,  as  in  the  early  days 
of  the  beautiful  Grecian  culture,  the  dramatists  re- 


Edwin    Booth  97 

vived  and  perpetuated  whatever  was  grand,  awful, 
and  sublime  in  their  almost  forgotten  traditions ; 
as  in  the  middle  age  the  Church,  the  mightiest 
of  spiritual  forces,  still  called  to  its  aid  the  Mys 
teries  which  brought  home  to  the  common  people 
whatever  was  lovely  and  holy  in  Hebrew  or 
Christian  legend ;  so,  in  this  enlightened  Nine 
teenth  Century,  shall  we  not  demand  of  the 
drama  that  it  shall  take  the  lead  in  all  the  purify 
ing,  strengthening,  broadening,  and  elevating  ten 
dencies  which  make  a  progressive  civilization  ? 

It  was  Mr.  Booth's  conviction  of  the  real  pos 
sibilities  of  the  stage  that  induced  him  to  work  for 
its  improvement,  not  only  in  the  parts  he  played, 
but  in  all  its  adjuncts  and  accessories.  As  far 
back  as  1860,  when  he  was  the  manager  of  the 
Winter  Garden  Theatre,  following  the  example 
of  Macready  and  the  younger  Kean  in  England, 
he  put  many  pieces  upon  the  stage  with  a 
degree  of  historical  accuracy  and  impressiveness 
that  was  an  education  to  our  playgoers,  and  led 
the  way  in  which  our  later  Wallacks,  Dalys  arid 
Palmers  have  creditably  followed. 

His  opulent  equipment  of  the  Winter  Garden 
went  up  in  flames,  but,  nothing  daunted,  he 
soon  after  projected  a  theatre  which  should  be 
a  model  of  its  kind,  both  for  the  comfort  and 
safety  of  the  audience,  and  the  convenience  of 


98  Edwin    Booth 

the  players.  It  was  made  as  complete  as  it 
could  be  in  every  respect,  with  the  knowledge 
and  resources  at  his  command.  Plays  were 
produced  with  an  accuracy  and  amplitude  of 
artistic  device  that  pleased  both  mind  and  eye. 
Not  only  the  plays  in  which  he  took  part,  but 
those  in  which  others  appeared. 

That  enterprise,  in  spite  of  its  artistic  merits, 
went  down  in  bankruptcy,  as  the  former  had 
gone  up  in  flame  ;  but  the  projector  of  it  was 
not  disheartened.  Again  he  took  to  the  road  ; 
again  the  streams  of  Pactolus  flowed  into  his 
pockets  ;  and  again,  having  paid  the  last  penny 
of  former  indebtedness,  he  bethought  him,  not 
of  himself,  but  of  his  fellows.  It  was  on  a 
pleasant  yachting  voyage  in  the  Summer  time 
with  chosen  friends,  loving  and  beloved,  along 
the  picturesque  coast  of  Maine,  where  high  hills 
peep  over  their  forests  of  greenery,  and  the  far 
glance  of  dancing  waves  shoot  back  the  bright 
beams  of  the  sky,  that  he  communicated  to 
them  his  plans  for  an  institution  which,  let  us 
pray,  the  greediness  of  fire  will  not  consume 
nor  the  maelstrom  of  finance  absorb.  He  told 
them  of  the  society,  now  called  "The  Players," 
to  whose  gratitude  and  hospitality  we  owe  the 
splendid  assemblage  which  honors  this  hall  to 
day.  He  gave  to  it  all  his  available  funds  ;  he 


Edwin    Booth  99 

gave  to  it  the  companions  of  his  long  silent 
life — his  books ;  and  he  gave  to  it  the  treasures 
of  his  secret  heart — his  pictures  and  his  relics. 
His  desire  was  to  erect  a  home  where  the  se 
lected  members  of  his  profession  might  meet 
with  one  another,  and  with  the  representatives 
of  other  professions,  in  friendly  intercourse  and 
on  terms  of  social  equality  and  reciprocal  es 
teem. 

It  is  within  the  walls  of  its  sumptuous  edifice, 
as  you  walk  its  halls  and  corridors,  that  the  pic 
tures  bring  back  to  the  eye  the  celebrities  of 
the  stage  whom  we  all  revere — and  some  of 
whom  have  found  a  place  in  England's  proudest 
memorial  of  her  honored  dead.  It  is  there  that 
a  letter,  a  sword,  a  lock  of  hair,  or  a  tatter  of 
dress  restores  Garrick,  Kemble,  Kean,  Mrs. 
Siddons  almost  to  the  touch,  and  there  the 
elder  Booth,  Cooke,  Cooper,  Elliston,  Munden, 
Forrest,  Wallack,  Gilbert,  Barnes,  Placide,  and 
others  look  down  upon  you  in  genial  sererJty. 
As  one  sits  there,  sometimes  in  a  kind  of  rev- 
ery,  he  hears  the  tinkling  of  a  little  bell  and 
he  sees  the  curtain  rise,  and  then  a  whole  en 
trancing  world  of  grace  and  splendor  exhales 
like  a  glorious  vision.  It  is  there  now  that  the 
genius,  the  beauty,  the  distinction  of  the  city 
is  gathered  annually  to  lay  its  tributes  of  afTec- 


loo  Edwin    Booth 

tion  and  respect  at  the  feet  of  the  Founder, 
whose  good  remembrance 

"  Lies  richer  in  their  thoughts  than  on  his  tomb." 

It  was  there  that  he  spent  his  last  hours,  in 
communion  with  friends  who  deemed  it  an 
honor  to  be  admitted  to  his  confidence,  and 
there  his  gentle  spirit  took  its  way  to  the  wel 
comes  of  the  good  and  great  made  perfect. 

Like  a  light  in  the  skies  he  has  now  passed 
below  the  dews  and  damps  of  the  horizon  ;  but 
may  we  not  say  of  him  with  our  earliest  of 
poets  : 

"  That  the  soft  mem'ry  of  his  virtues  yet 

Lingers  like  twilight  hues,  when  the  bright  sun  is  set." 

May  we  not  say  of  him,  as  of  the  good  Dun 
can,  that  "  after  life's  fitful  fever  he  sleeps 
well,"  leaving  behind  him  no  rankling  animosi 
ties,  no  unadjusted  wrongs,  no  bitter  remem 
brances,  only  sorrow  and  a  grateful  sense  of 
his  genius  and  goodness.  In  life,  no  doubt,  he 
had  his  enemies — who  has  not  ? — but  no  one 
ever  learned  that  fact  from  his  own  lips.  There 
were  those,  perhaps,  even  of  his  own  profession, 
who  exaggerated  his  hereditary  traits  into  per 
sonal  faults,  but  it  produced  no  bitter  resent 
ment  in  his  heart.  For  the  thirty  years  that  I 
knew  him  with  more  or  less  intimacy  I  never 


Edwin    Booth  101 

heard  him  speak  an  unkind  word  of  any  human 
being.  Yet  he  was  as  unassuming  as  he  was 
generous,  and  I  may  add  that  during  that  long 
interval  I  never  heard  him  speak  unduly  of 
himself,  or  of  himself  at  all  save  in  connection 
with  some  project  for  the  public  good. 

Affliction  fell  upon  him, — the  early  death  of 
his  father — whom  he  loved  and  honored — the 
withering  of  that  fair  flower  now  "  enskied  and 
sainted,"  around  whose  being  the  tenderest  fibres 
of  his  heart  were  strung — that  great  public 
calamity,  which  for  a  moment  blotted  his  heaven 
of  future  hope  and  happiness  ;  but  these  misfor 
tunes,  while  they  may  have  deepened  the  lines 
of  thought  on  his  forehead,  never  galled  his  heart 
with  a  drop  of  despair  or  pessimism.  Recover 
ing  with  elastic  spirit  from  every  blow,  he  kept 
the  even  tenor  of  his  way  in  the  discharge  of 
his  duty,  as  he  conceived  it.  The  other  day,  in 
taking  up  his  copy  of  "  Macready's  Reminiscen 
ces,"  I  found  near  the  close,  where  the  veteran 
actor  expresses  dissatisfaction  with  his  life,  that 
Mr.  Booth  had  penciled  on  the  margin  :  "  What 
would  this  man  have  ?  Blessed  with  education, 
with  a  loving  family,  with  fame  and  fortune  and 
the  friendship  of  the  great,  he  ought  to  have 
been  supremely  happy."  Mr.  Booth  was  not 
supremely  happy — few  are ;  but  he  enjoyed  life. 


IO2  Edwin    Booth 

He  enjoyed  it  because  he  had  discovered  the 
true  secret  of  tranquillity  and  content — the  use  of 
his  faculties  and  his  fortune,  not  as  a  means  of 
self-indulgence  or  ostentation,  but  for  the  further 
ance  of  general  ends.  Scarcely  one  of  his  more 
intimate  friends  but  could  tell  you  of  some  dark 
home  brightened,  of  some  decayed  gentleman  or 
gentlewoman  raised  to  comfort  and  cheerfulness 
by  his  unseen  but  timely  intervention.  He  had 
learned  the  deep  wisdom  of  that  epigram  of 
Martial,  which  perhaps  he  had  never  read,  which 
says  that  "  What  we  possess  and  try  to  keep 
flies  away,  but  what  we  give  away  remains  a 
joyful  possession  forever."  It  was  for  this  his 
friends  not  only  admired  him,  but  loved  him ; 
and  it  was  for  this  the  greater  public  mingled 
with  its  admiration  of  the  artist  its  attachment 
to  the  man.  For,  strange  as  it  may  seem,  this 
man  who  had  passed  his  life  in  the  expression 
of  simulated  sentiments  was  in  his  own  life  the 
sincerest  and  truest  of  men.  This  man,  who, 
like  a  nomad,  had  spent  his  days  in  wandering 
over  the  earth,  prized  above  all  things  else  the 
retirement  and  seclusion  of  the  home  ;  thrs  con 
spicuous  leader  of  a  profession  more  than  others 
exposed  to  temptation,  preserved  himself  as  pure 
as  the  wind-sifted  snow  of  the  mountains  ;  and 
he,  the  popular  idol,  who  had  only  to  appear 


Edwin    Booth  103 

upon  the  boards  to  awaken  round  upon  round  of 
rapturous  applause,  dreaded  notoriety,  shunned 
the  crowd,  and  loved  to  be  alone  with  his  own 
thoughts.  How  gentle  he  was  there  I  cannot 
tell  you — as  gentle  as  the  breeze  that  will  not 
detach  the  delicate  blossom  from  the  stem ;  nor 
how  strong  he  was  in  his  adherence  to  duty — 
as  strong  as  the  oak  that  no  blasts  from  the  hills 
can  pull  up  by  its  roots. 

Therefore  it  was  that  a  strong  personal  feel 
ing  pervaded  his  popularity.  Recall  those  final 
days,  when  he  was  laid  upon  the  couch  of  pain, 
and  remember  how  eagerly  we  followed  the  bul 
letins,  rejoicing  when  they  were  favorable  and 
sorrowing  when  they  were  not  so.  Tried  skill 
and  devoted  affection  were  gathered  about  that 
couch — the  affections  of  life-long  friends,  and  of 
one,  the  image  of  her  who  had  long  since  gone 
to  prepare  his  way;  but  neither  skill  nor  affec 
tion  could  delay  the  death-hour,  and  when,  on 
that  sweet,  soft  day  of  June,  as  light  and  warmth 
were  broadening  over  the  earth,  and  the  trees 
had  put  on  a  fuller  and  richer  green,  it  was  an 
nounced  that  his  eyes  were  finally  closed  on  all 
this  brightness  and  beauty — how  instinctively  we 
exclaimed  with  Horatio,  bending  over  the  pros 
trate  form  of  Hamlet,  "  Now  cracks  a  noble 
heart !  "  and  as  the  big  tears  flushed  our  eyes, 


104  Edwin    Booth 

how  we  added  with  him  :  "  Good-night,  sweet 
Prince  !  And  flights  of  angels  sing  thee  to  thy 
rest."  Indeed,  may  we  not  repeat  it  here,  "  Good 
night,  sweet  Prince,"  and  as  we  utter  it  may  we 
not  hear  with  our  finer  ears  a  responsive  echo, 
floating  with  solemn  softness,  downward  from  the 
heights,  "  Good-night,  dear  friends,  God  bless 
you  all ;  good-night !  " 


LOUIS    KOSSUTH 


LOUIS    KOSSUTH* 


LADIES  AND   GENTLEMEN   OF   THE   HUNGARIAN   AND 
OTHER  SOCIETIES: 

The  life  and  death  of  Louis  Kossuth  were 
events  seemingly  so  far  apart  in  time  that  it  is 
difficult  to  bring  them  together  in  thought.  His 
active  career  belonged  to  the  first  half  and  middle 
of  the  Nineteenth  Century,  and  his  death  took 
place  at  the  close  of  it,  after  an  interval  of  more 
than  forty  years.  The  scenes  in  which  he  figured 
conspicuously  had  long  since  passed  from  the 
stage  when  he  died,  so  that  many  of  those  who 
had  seen  him  at  the  height  of  his  glory  had 
preceded  him  to  the  tomb.  His  departure,  in 
deed,  was  to  a  large  number  of  us,  who  were 
rather  his  successors  than  his  contemporaries, 
somewhat  of  a  surprise,  and  it  became  known  to 

*  This  address  was  delivered  in  part  at  a  great  commemo 
rative  meeting  of  Hungarian  and  other  societies,  held  in  the 
Cooper  Institute  of  New  York  on  the  4th  of  April,  1894.  It 
was  afterwards  given  in  full  at  the  Century  Association  on  the 
27th  of  April,  and  a  week  or  two  later  repeated  before  the  Phi 
Beta  Kappa  Society  of  Yale  College,  New  Haven. 
107 


io8  Louis  Kossuth 

us,  like  the  fall  of  a  majestic  and  solitary  oak 
which  has  survived  its  fellows,  by  the  echoes  it 
aroused  in  all  the  surrounding  hills. 

I  am  one  of  the  few  persons  whose  lives  cover 
ing  this  gap  are  able  to  speak  of  him  from  im 
mediate  knowledge.  With  thousands  of  others, 
I  saw  him  the  day  he  landed  upon  our  shores 
below  the  old  quarantine  ground  on  Staten  Island, 
and  we  were  struck  at  first  sight  by  the  pictur- 
esqueness  of  his  appearance  in  a  semi-military 
coat  and  a  soft  Hungarian  hat  whose  plumes 
were  waving  in  the  breeze.  I  heard  the  mar 
vellous  address  in  which  he  poured  forth  his 
gratitude  as  an  exile  for  liberty's  sake  from  the 
despotisms  of  the  Old  World  to  the  young  Re 
public  of  the  New  World,  which  had  been  his 
rescue  and  his  refuge.  I  witnessed  the  magnifi 
cent  reception  given  him  the  next  day  as  the 
guest  of  the  nation  by  the  City  of  New  York 
(never  before  vouchsafed  any  individual,  save 
Lafayette,  who  had  been  our  revolutionary  ally), 
when  all  the  houses  were  aflame  with  color,  and 
the  shouts  of  the  multitude  in  the  streets  "  out 
voiced  the  loud-mouthed  seas."  More  lately,  as 
one  of  the  committee  of  the  Press  appointed  to 
invite  him  to  a  banquet,  I  was  brought  into 
familiar  contact  with  him,  and  in  that  way  was 
enabled  to  hear  day  after  day  the  almost  innu- 


Louis  Kossuth  109 

merable  addresses  he  made  to  different  assem 
blies  and  delegations.  I  cannot  say  that  I  was 
more  impressionable  than  other  men  of  the  time, 
but  his  presence  affected  me  more  deeply  than 
that  of  any  other  man  that  I  had  ever  met,  not 
excepting  the  grand  Daniel  Webster,  with  his 
craggy  brows  and  cavernous  eyes  that  more  often 
repelled  than  attracted  by  their  solemnity. 

Kossuth's  fascination  was  due  partly  to  the 
glamour  of  his  recent  exploits,  partly  to  his  deep, 
full,  rich  voice  that  had  a  strange  music  in  it, 
partly  to  his  sad,  patient,  pleading  look,  after 
wards  recalled  to  me  by  Mr.  Lincoln  when  I  saw 
him  alone  in  the  great  White  House — whence  a 
little  coffin  had  gone  a  few  days  before — partly 
to  the  gentleness  of  his  manner,  which  added 
somewhat  of  female  loveliness  to  its  heroic  dig 
nity,  but  mostly  to  an  indescribable  magnetism, 
which  emanated  from  him  as  the  aroma  from  the 
rose — or  seductiveness  from  a  beautiful  woman. 
The  portraits  painted  of  him  at  the  time  (some 
of  which  are  still  extant)  representing  him  as  an 
alert,  eager,  impulsive  soldier  ready  to  leap  upon 
his  war-steed  and  to  wave  his  glittering  falchion 
over  his  head  (as  David  has  painted  Napoleon 
amid  the  narrow  and  rocky  defiles  of  the  Alps), 
were  quite  fantastic  in  their  misconceptions.  He 
was  little  of  the  soldier  and  very  much  of  the 


no  Louis  Kossuth 

student  with  his  thoughtful  brows,  or  of  the  lawyer 
lost  in  complicated  cases,  or  of  the  statesman 
whose  shoulders  bow  beneath  the  weight  of 

o 

mightied  monarchies.  He  moved  me  profoundly 
when  I  first  saw  him,  and  now  that  forty  more 
winters  have  sifted  their  snows  upon  my  head,  I 
look  back  through  the  mist  of  years  and  still 
see  him  as  an  imposing  figure,  visionary  and 
exaggerated  perhaps,  like  the  shadows  which  the 
setting  sun  casts  upon  the  semi-luminous  clouds 
of  the  mountain  tops. 

I  shall  not  detain  you  with  any  elaborate 
details  of  Kossuth's  historical  career  and  ser 
vices.  Recent  commemorations,  sending  their 
echoes  from  the  Ural  to  the  Rocky  Mountains, 
have  told  his  story  to  the  overarching  skies. 
Nothing  more  need  be  said  except  in  the  way 
of  a  personal  contribution  to  that  general  esti 
mate  of  his  rank  and  worth,  which  posterity 
will  ultimately  form.  That  estimate,  however, 
was  not  helped  by  one  of  our  newspapers  which 
said  the  other  day  that  "  Kossuth  had  gained 
great  notoriety  for  a  time  by  the  eccentricity 
of  his  character  and  the  romantic  adventures 
of  his  life."  He  was  eccentric  in  one  respect, 
in  that  he  devoted  extraordinary  abilities,  which 
might  have  won  him  fame  and  wealth,  in  any 
of  the  liberal  professions,  to  a  single  great  public 


Louis  Kossuth  in 

end ;  and  his  life  was  adventurous,  in  that  it 
was  full  of  vicissitudes,  changing  from  the  palace 
to  the  prison,  from  the  legislative  hall,  where 
his  word  was  a  command,  to  the  narrow  cham 
ber  where  he  wrote  for  his  bread,  or  from  the 
idolatry  of  populous  cities  to  the  loneliness  of 
the  desert.  Indeed,  phases  of  his  adventures 
were  as  romantic  as  any  that  ever  confronted  a 
chivalric  knight  who,  in  defence  of  an  ideal  aim, 
courted  the  extremes  of  danger  with  a  manly 
emprise,  prowess  and  endurance  ;  but  adven 
ture  and  romance  were  mere  incidents  in  a 
career  of  far  more  substantial  meaning.  If  you 
will  read  the  youthful  papers  in  which  he  be 
gan  the  struggle  against  the  Hapsburg  dynasty ; 
the  early  speeches  in  the  Hungarian  Diet  by 
which  he  gathered  the  national  feelings  of  his 
countrymen  into  a  unity  of  conviction  ;  the 
official  documents  which  called  an  army  and  a 
treasury  into  existence  ;  the  hundred  addresses 
which  aroused  the  sober  and  sedate  inhabitants  of 
England  into  transports  of  enthusiasm,  and  the 
two  hundred  others  in  this  country,  which 
rolled  like  thunder  from  the  Alleghanies  to  the 
Rockies,  you  will  everywhere  discover  the  evi 
dences  of  a  serious,  sober  reason,  looking  be 
fore  and  after,  of  an  affection  grasping  the 
broadest  interests,  and  of  a  courage  recoiling 


1 1 2  Louis  Kossuth 

before  no  difficulty.  Kossuth  was  not  a  fanatic, 
but  a  careful  student  of  principles,  an  intel 
ligent  publicist,  a  wise  legislator,  who  stood 
front  to  front  with  the  most  eminent  statesmen 
of  his  age,  and  brought  to  the  encounter  with 
them  a  knowledge,  a  prudence,  a  wisdom  at 
least  equal  to  their  own.  His  schemes  were 
elevated  and  generous  in  their  aims,  and  rational 
and  feasible  in  their  means ;  or,  if  they  were 
impracticable  in  any  respect,  they  were  so  only, 
as  all  schemes  are  at  first  impracticable,  which 
purpose  to  bring  the  conditions  of  society  up 
to  a  higher  standard  of  justice  and  truth,  but 
which  in  the  end  demonstrate  their  rationality 
by  becoming  a  part  of  the  established  order  of 
the  world.  His  real  intellectual  and  moral 
affinities  turned  him  to  the  Pericles,  the  Catos, 
and  the  Ciceros  of  antiquity  ;  to  the  Vaninies 
and  Brunos  of  the  renaissance  ;  to  the  L'Hopitals 
and  Condes  of  France,  the  Sydneys,  Hampdens, 
Vanes,  and  Chatams  of  England ;  to  William 
of  Orange,  and,  most  of  all,  to  the  Adamses, 
the  Henrys,  the  Jeffersons,  the  Washingtons  of 
our  own  colonial  history. 

It  must  be  remembered  in  estimating  Kos 
suth  that  he  was  pre-eminently  a  child  of  the 
age  in  which  he  lived.  He  was  born  in  1802,  or, 
as  Victor  Hugo,  who  came  in  the  same  year,  says, 


Louis  Kossuth  113 

"  when  the  Nineteenth  Century  was  t\vo  years 
old."  The  continent  of  Europe  was  still  feeling 
the  shock  of  that  great  earthquake,  the  French 
Revolution,  and  a  gigantic  spirit  of  the  storm,  Na 
poleon  Bonaparte,  was  playing  with  the  tempest 
at  the  height  of  his  power,  but  not  at  the  end 
of  his  career.  The  siege  of  Toulon  had  directed 
attention  to  him  ;  the  battle  of  the  Sections  in 
Paris,  showing  the  efficacy  of  real  bullets,  dis 
closed  his  terrible  earnestness  ;  while  the  cam 
paign  of  Italy  had  astounded  the  martinets  and 
enthused  the  masses.  This  young  soldier  of 
fortune  had  been  already  chosen  first  Consul 
for  life  in  France,  and  was  soon  to  be  pro 
claimed  the  Emperor  ;  but  Ulm  and  Eylau  and 
Wagram  and  Jena  and  Boradino  were  yet  .to 
come.  Kossuth  as  a  child  might  have  heard 
the  tramp  of  those  legions  which  carried  vic 
tory  or  death  to  nearly  every  capital  of  Eu 
rope,  and  a  few  years  later  seen  the  all-con 
querors  broken,  famished  and  distressed,  as 
they  retreated  before  the  frost-demons  of  Russia, 
while  their  great  leader,  the  tide  of  his  fortunes 
rolled  back  and  his  dream  of  invincibleness  dis 
solved,  found  his  word  of  command,  that  once 
awed  the  world,  dying  away  in  the  bleak  air 
as  an  impotent  sound.  Kossuth  was  thirteen 
years  of  age  when  Waterloo  .dispersed  his  power, 


ii4  Louis  Kossuth 

and  nineteen  when  he  finally  sank  into  the  pit. 
A  youth  of  quick  sensibility  and  earnest  pur 
poses,  living  in  the  whirl  of  such  agitations, 
he  was  deeply  absorbed  in  those  great  ques 
tions  of  international  law,  of  the  pretentions  of 
dynasties,  of  the  origin  of  governments,  of  the 
rights  of  the  people,  which  cannon  volleys  may 
disturb,  but  which  human  reason  in  the  end 
determines  and  decides. 

Destined  to  the  profession  of  the  law,  Kossuth 
devoted  his  faculties  to  the  study  of  it  with  the 
ardor  of  one  who  sees  in  it  the  life  or  death  of 
his  fellow  men.  He  studied  it,  however,  under 
the  influences  of  that  Philosophy  of  the  Eight 
eenth  Century,  slightly  modified  by  that  of  the 
Nineteenth,  which  had  broken  away  from  nearly 
all  the  religious  and  political  theories  of  the 
past.  Those  superstitious  creeds  and  emasculat 
ing  fears  which  had  made  man  the  abject  and 
cowering  slave  of  his  environment,  had  given 
way  to  the  nobler  view,  that  it  is  his  destiny  as  it 
will  be  his  triumph  to  become  the  master  of 
nature  by  the  force  of  his  own  genius.  The 
logic  of  his  reason  and  the  impulses  of  his  heart 
compelled  him  to  the  acceptance  of  the  new 
doctrine,  to  which  he  was  already  inclined  by 
the  traditions  of  his  family,  seventeen  members  of 
which  had  been  executed  within  a  generation  or 


Louis  Kossuth  115 

two  for  their  fidelity  to  liberal  principles,  while 
his  father,  who  was  a  nobleman  and  a  lawyer, 
was  no  less  a  democrat,  and  the  university  in 
which  he  was  educated  was  distinguished  for 
the  broad  spirit  that  directed  its  instructions. 
The  contests  of  that  day,  you  will  remember, 
the  outcome  of  centuries  of  controversy,  were 
fundamental,  going  to  the  very  roots  of  human 
belief,  and  of  deadly  earnestness  in  that  they  in 
volved  the  convictions  and  interests  of  all  classes 
of  the  people. 

It  was  a  dogma  of  nearly  all  the  old  reli 
gions,  which  originated  in  times  of  the  cruelest 
barbarism  and  ignorance,  that  political  power 
was  derived  from  some  superior,  generally  some 
unknown  god  or  gods  who  had  delegated  it  to 
certain  classes,  priests  or  kings  and  the  families 
to  which  they  belonged.  Strange  as  it  may 
seem,  this  notion  was  to  a  large  extent  en 
grafted  upon  the  accepted  Christianity  in  spite 
of  its  grand  inspiration  as  to  the  universal 
brotherhood  of  man  and  the  common  fatherhood 
of  God.  And  it  was  confirmed  and  perpetuated 
by  the  whole  tenor  of  feudalism.  It  would  be 
incredible  to  us  now  if  traces  of  it  did  not 
linger  in  many  of  the  most  enlightened  courts 
of  Europe,  that  men  should  ever  have  delighted 
in  a  self- degradation  which  confessed  that  cer- 


1 1 6  Louis  Kossuth 

tain  families  were  hereditarily  noble  and  divine, 
while  their  own  families  were  by  birth  base  and 
ignoble ;  or  that  they  should  ever  have  consented 
to  kiss  the  feet  of  certain  assumed  superiors  in 
a  spirit  of  servility,  which  was  ill-disguised  under 
the  name  of  loyalty.  But  such  was  the  case. 

As  late  as  1821,  the  Congress  of  Laybach, 
the  mouthpiece  of  the  Holy  Alliance,  as  it  was 
called,  proclaimed  without  a  blush  that  God  had 
endowed  a  few  persons,  meaning  emperors,  kings 
and  princes,  with  "  a  part  of  his  sovereignty  and 
made  them  solely  responsible  for  its  use.  All 
changes  of  legislation  and  administration  must 
emanate  from  them ;  everything  that  deviates 
from  their  will  necessarily  leads  to  disorders  and 
commotions  and  evils  far  more  insufferable  than 
those  they  pretend  to  remedy."  In  other  words, 
absolute  submission  to  the  decrees  of  their  con 
secrated  potentates  was  the  rule  of  duty,  and 
the  slightest  departure  from  them  an  evidence 
of  wickedness  and  treason  that  deserved  rebuke 
and  punishment. 

A  sturdy  line  of  thinkers,  whose  pathway 
was  illuminated  by  the  fires  of  the  stake,  had 
steadily  protested  against  this  view  of  political 
right  and  duty.  From  the  dawn  of  the  Re 
naissance  down  through  the  Italian  Republics, 
the  Reformation,  the  Freethinkers  of  England, 


Louis  Kossuth  1 1 7 

the  Encyclopedists  of  France,  our  patriots  of 
'76,  and  the  French  Revolutionists  of  '89,  that 
hoary  old  dogma  of  dread  and  degradation  had 
lost  one  after  another  of  its  miserable  features 
until  at  this  day  it  is  almost  completely  aban 
doned.  Men  are  now  inclined  to  look  no  more 
for  the  source  and  measure  of  political  life  to 
unknown  gods  of  the  clouds  and  winds,  who 
have  often  more  of  demon  than  divinity  in 
them ;  to  obscure  oracles  from  the  smoke  of 
cruel  sacrifices ;  to  conclaves  of  cowled  priests, 
mumbling  of  mysteries,  while  they  grasp  for 
gold ;  to  imperial  anarks  wreathed  in  curses 
dark  ;  or  to  lines  of  stern,  black-bearded  kings 
with  wolvish  eyes ;  but  they  turn  to  humanity 
itself,  endowed  with  more  than  godlike  or  king- 
like  dignity  by  the  possession  of  reason,  affec 
tion,  conscience,  and  free-will,  and  thereby 
rendered  capable  of  an  indefinite  growth  in 
truth,  goodness,  and  justice.  As  creatures  of 
an  infinite  life,  we  now  hold  that  all  men  as  men 
are  subject  to  equal  responsibilities  and  entitled 
to  an  equal  participation  in  things  that  are 
common  to  all. 

Kossuth,  in  consecrating  his  youthful  energy 
to  the  furtherance  of  the  modern  movement, 
began  his  work  at  home.  As  Hungary  had 
ever  been  an  independent  nation  with  her  own 


Ii8  Louis  Kossuth 

traditions,  language,  genius,  and  government, 
his  first  aim  was  to  recover  the  autocrasy 
which  had  been  taken  from  her  by  the  wiles 
of  diplomacy  and  the  force  of  the  sword.  As 
she  was  covered  over  with  those  fetters  of  re 
straint  which  a  foolish  self-interest  inspires  in  the 
vain  hope  that  the  vast  movements  of  industry 
and  trade  can  be  regulated  by  a  petty  legisla 
tion,  his  second  aim  was  to  substitute  volun 
tary  for  servile  labor,  and  to  guarantee  to  every 
one  the  right  to  use  his  muscular  strength  and 
intellectual  skill  in  the  determination  of  his  own 
destiny,  according  to  his  own  desires,  and  not 
at  the  dictation  of  others,  who  were  often 
strangers  and  always  enemies.  Then  again,  as 
she  was  still  subjected  to  those  religious  exac 
tions,  which  defrauded  Protestants  of  the  gov 
ernment  of  their  own  churches  and  schools,  and 
oppressed  Catholics  with  exorbitant  and  iniqui 
tous  taxes,  he  desired  to  bring  about  the 
emancipation  and  the  equality  of  all  religious 
confessions.  National  independence,  industrial 
liberty,  religious  emancipation  ! 

But  how  was  he  to  achieve  such  changes  ?  Sent 
to  the  Diet  as  the  proxy  of  a  landed  proprietor, 
who  had  a  voice  but  not  a  vote  in  the  Lower 
House,  his  voice  soon  became  more  potential  than 
a  hundred  votes.  Yet  the  proceedings  of  the 


Louis  Kossuth  119 

Diet  were  secret  and  never  reached  the  people, 
nor  was  there  anywhere  a  public  press  to  sup 
ply  the  deficiency.  In  this  strait  he  and  a  few 
friends  resorted  to  the  strange  contrivance  of  a 
written  newspaper,  which  was  circulated  by 
hand  from  door  to  door;  but  even  this  feeble 
agency  excited  the  suspicion  of  authority,  and 
was  forbidden.  None  the  less,  it  was  continued 
in  secret,  and  Kossuth,  the  principal  manager, 
was  seized  in  his  bed  by  night,  tried  for  trea 
son,  and  condemned  to  four  years  of  solitary 
imprisonment.  Of  course,  an  outrage  so  arbi 
trary  aroused  a  tremendous  popular  resentment; 
his  release  was  demanded ;  the  Diet  took  up 
his  cause  and  made  it  its  own.  Austria  re 
lucted,  but  at  the  end  of  two  years,  as  the 
Diet  refused  to  pay  its  subsidies,  it  was  com 
pelled  to  yield.  Kossuth  was  released,  but,  alas, 
for  the  purposes  of  the  despots  he  who  had 
gone  to  the  dungeon  an  almost  unknown  agi 
tator,  came  forth  as  the  honored  champion  of 
freedom  of  the  press,  freedom  of  trade,  and 
freedom  of  conscience,  and  a  hero  of  the 
people. 

Indeed,  the  work  of  propagation  then  be 
came  more  active  than  ever;  the  written  news 
paper  was  supplanted  by  the  lithographic 
newspaper;  and  the  simple  disquisition  of 


I2O  Louis  Kossuth 

individuals  gave  way  to  a  report  of  the  dis 
cussions  of  the  Diet,  where  the  tone  of  a 
majority  of  the  speakers  had  risen  to  an  alti 
tude  of  almost  open  defiance.  It  was  resolved 
by  the  Diet  that  all  the  oppressive  burdens  of 
feudality  should  be  lifted ;  that  the  peasants,  no 
longer  mere  adscripts  of  the  glebe,  should  be 
free  proprietors  of  their  lands  ;  that  equality  of 
rights  and  duties  should  be  the  fundamental 
law ;  that  political,  civic,  and  religious  liberty 
should  be  the  common  property  of  citizens,  no 
matter  what  race  they  belonged  to,  or  what 
tongue  they  speak,  or  what  religion  they  pro 
fessed  ;  and  as  guarantee  they  demanded  a  na 
tional  ministry  to  see  to  the  defence  of  their 
rights  and  the  execution  of  their  local  laws. 
Austria  with  reluctance  was  at  length  compelled 
to  yield,  a  native  ministry  was  appointed  and 
Kossuth  became  the  Minister  of  Finance.  It  was 
simply  putting  a  weapon  in  his  hands  to  beat 
down  all  past  and  proposed  encroachments  of  a 
domination  which  had  now  become  not  only 
oppressive  but  loathsome. 

It  was  in  the  midst  of  these  perturbations  that 
the  year  1848,  christened  and  consecrated  in  his 
tory  as  "  the  year  of  Revolution/'  arrived.  The 
first  outbreak  took  place  in  France  in  the  month 
of  February,  but  the  fires  of  it  had  been  long 


Loiiis  Kossuth  121 

smouldering  under  the  surface  and  were  every 
where  seeking  a  vent  The  great  scientific  dis 
coveries  of  the  previous  age,  enlarged  and 
quickened  by  the  spirit  of  inquiry  they  had  in 
spired  into  philosophy  and  research,  had  given 
to  man  a  wider  mastery  of  the  forces  of  nature. 
Increased  facilities  of  intercourse,  an  easier  and 
broader  interchange  of  the  products  of  skill  and 
enterprise,  had  in  a  thousand  ways  promoted  a 
vast  intellectual,  social  and  material  activity.  Lit 
erature  was  not  only  stimulated  into  fresh  exer 
tions,  but  broadened  in  its  sympathies,  and,  aided 
by  mechanical  inventions,  more  universally  dis 
tributed.  The  social  conditions  of  mankind  were 
changing  and  presented  questions  for  discussion 
as  to  the  welfare  of  the  masses  which  could  not 
be  put  aside.  As  wealth  and  capital  increased, 
and  were  followed  by  a  growing  prosperity,  these 
questions  forced  themselves  upon  attention.  The 
industrial  classes  began  to  demand  larger  oppor 
tunities  and  a  fairer  share  of  the  results  to  which 
their  labor  so  effectively  contributed.  A  few  of 
the  wiser  governments,  like  those  of  England  and 
Belgium,  bought  their  peace  by  timely  conces 
sions  to  popular  needs  in  the  form  of  juster 
methods  of  taxation  and  a  more  expanded  suf 
frage  ;  but  the  blear-eyed  bigots  of  use  and  wont 
persisted  in  their  selfish  and  foolish  old  modes. 


122  Louis  Kossuth 

They  were  awakened  to  their  real  dangers  only 
by  the  actual  uprising  of  the  people  and  the  dis 
charge  of  guns.  Greece  broke  away  from  the 
inhuman  tyranny  of  the  Turks  ;  Italy  revolted 
against  the  exactions  of  her  hosts  of  petty  dukes 
and  princes  and  the  overbearing  preponderance 
of  Austria  ;  the  castles  of  the  Rhine,  erewhile  the 
haunts  of  the  robber-barons,  began  to  glare  on 
the  midnight  skies.  Once  more  the  students  of 
the  universities  thundered  forth  Luther's  grand 
old  hymn,  "  Ein'  feste  Burg  ist  unser  Gott ; " 
peasants  turned  their  scythes  to  the  reaping  of 
redder  harvests  than  those  of  the  field  ;  and  tumul 
tuary  upheavals  soon  shook  the  pavements  of 
capital  cities  with  earthquake  rumbles.  The 
rulers,  offering  reforms  when  it  was  too  late,  had 
no  recourse  but  to  armies  of  suppression.  In  a 
little  while  the  whole  surface  of  Europe  exhib 
ited  the  wild  aspect  which  Byron  saw  upon  the 
hills,  where 

" from  peak  to  peak,  the  rattling  crags  among 

Leaped  the  live  thunder;  not  from  one  lone  cloud, — 
But  every  mountain  then  had  found  a  tongue, 
And  Jura  answered  through  her  misty  shroud 
Back  to  the  joyous  Alps,  who  called  to  her  aloud." 

Hungary,  quick  to  feel  the  generous  impulse, 
was  the  first  to  proclaim  her  independence,  and 
Kossuth  was  lifted  on  the  top  wave  of  the  rising 


Louis  Kossuth  123 

flood  by  an  almost  unanimous  vote  of  both 
houses  of  the  National  Diet,  sustained  by  the 
adherence  of  every  municipality  and  every  village, 
and  charged  with  the  conduct  of  the  tempest. 
Rejoicing  in  his  intelligence  and  confident  of  his 
honor  and  patriotism,  the  power  conferred  upon 
him  was  almost  dictatorial.  But  never  was  a 
heavier  burden  imposed  upon  the  shoulders  of  a 
man.  The  "people,  in  convention  assembled,  re 
peating  the  accents  of  Jefferson's  immortal  paper, 
claimed  to  be  a  nation  ;  yet,  composed  as  they 
were  of  several  different,  even  hostile  races,  they 
were  utterly  unorganized  and  without  means. 
It  fell  upon  Kossuth  to  do  what  our  Hamilton 
had  done  at  the  close  of  the  Revolutionary  war, 
that  is,  to  create  a  Treasury ;  and  it  may  be  said 
of  him,  as  Webster  said  of  Hamilton,  that  "he 
struck  the  rock  of  the  national  resources,  and 
copious  streams  gushed  forth ;  he  touched  the 
dead  corpse  of  public  credit,  and  it  sprang  upon 
its  feet."  It  fell  upon  him  besides  to  raise  an 
army,  and  he  sent  forth  his  appeal,  which,  like 
Lincoln's  first  proclamation,  was  answered  by  a 
similar  song,  "  We  are  coming,  Father  Lajos,  three 
hundred  thousand  strong ;  "  and  that  improvised 
army,  which  sprang  almost  spontaneously  from 
the  soil,  like  the  first  volunteers  of  our  Civil  War, 
had  to  be  armed,  provisioned,  and  disciplined. 


124  Louis  Kossuth 

Thus  raw  and  inchoate,  it  was  compelled  to  meet 
the  train-bands  of  Croats,  Slavs,  and  Germans, 
which  Austria  had  treacherously  suborned,  as 
well  as  the  veteran  troops  of  the  Empire  itself, 
in  a  sort  of  double  war,  externally  against  the 
Empire,  and  internally  against  tumultuous  hordes 
of  semi-savages.  Kossuth,  although  not  educated 
as  a  soldier,  put  himself  at  the  head  of  his  troops 
and  shared  in  all  the  vicissitudes  of  their  des 
perate  campaigns.  In  the  starving  bivouacs  on 
the  mountain  sides,  when  the  rocks  were  their 
beds  and  the  drifting  snow  their  coverlids ;  in 
the  furious  forays  of  a  barbarous  frontier ;  in  the 
conflagration  of  villages,  when  their  homes  went 
up  in  flames ;  in  the  deadly  conflicts  of  the 
ranged  battle,  where  thousands  on  both  sides 
went  down  to  sudden  death, — he  took  his  part, 
rallying  the  hopeless  and  cheering  the  brave  to 
more  vigorous  onsets.  They  fought,  like  brave 
men,  long  and  well.  For  weeks  together,  every 
day  saw  its  bloody  conflict;  and  every  night  the 
skies  were  red  with  the  reflected  light  of  burning 
towns  and  villages.  Thus,  for  two  years  they  pro 
tracted  the  struggle.  The  internal  enemies  were 
three  times  dispersed,  the  external  invaders  were 
driven  beyond  the  frontiers,  once  to  the  gates  of 
Vienna  (nay,  to  the  very  halls  of  the  Hapsburgs), 
where  the  victors  might  have  dictated  their  own 


Louis  Kossuth  125 

terms  but   for   the    cruel  intervention   of  Russia, 
never  to  be  forgotten  nor  forgiven. 

Alas  !  what  could  those  poor  peasants  do, 
though  the  legendary  descendants  of  fathers  who 
had  conquered  Cyrus,  and  Alexander,  and  the 
Persian  Kings ;  what,  though  the  sons  of  that 
Attila,  who  had  once  swept  over  Europe  as  the 
Scourge  of  God,  could  they  do  against  so  for 
midable  a  foe  ?  They  could  only  fight,  and  fight 
they  did  ;  they  fought  in  the  spirit  of  the  lad  of 
eighteen  who,  when  surrounded  by  a  hostile 
troop,  was  asked  in  pure  pity  to  call  for  quar 
ter,  and  replied,  "  Hungarians  will  not  cry  for 
quarter  till  the  fatherland  is  free,"  and  so  let  his 
noble  soul  exale  through  the  hundred  bullet-holes 
that  pierced  his  body.  At  last,  overwhelmed  by 
numbers  and  betrayed  by  some  that  he  had 
trusted,  Kossuth  was  compelled  to  resign  his  mili 
tary  command ;  many  of  his  companions  were 
executed  on  the  spot,  many  were  carried  to 
dungeons,  and  he  himself  only  escaped  with  ex 
treme  difficulty  to  the  shores  of  the  Danube. 
Ah  !  what  a  desolate  hour  must  that  have  been  ? 
Looking  across  the  stream  he  saw  his  country 
"a  solemn  wilderness,  where  all  the  brave  lay 
dead ; "  in  the  roar  of  the  waters  through  the 
Iron  Gates  he  heard  the  sobs  and  sighs  of  his 

o 

comrades  in  prison,  while  the  tumult  of  the   cur- 


126  Louis  Kossuth 

rent  scarcely  equaled  the  tumult  of  grief  in  his 
heart.  He  yielded  his  sword  to  the  Turks,  who, 
more  Christian  than  Christians,  refused  to  sur 
render  him  to  the  allied  sovereigns,  though  often 
summoned  to  do  so.  Nominally,  they  confined 
him  to  a  fortress,  yet  allowed  him  to  go  free  and 
to  wander  along  the  bleak  coasts  of  Asia,  where 
every  hillock  was  the  tomb  of  a  buried  civiliza 
tion,  and  the  winds  of  the  desert  whistled  among 
the  weeds  that  grew  over  the  sites  of  once  pop 
ulous  cities. 

In  this  dark  hour  it  was  that  our  Republic 
stretched  out  its  sheltering  arms  to  the  expatri 
ated  hero,  and  invited  him  as  a  guest  to  our 
shores.  Austria,  of  course,  protested  against  us, 
but  our  defence  was  in  the  hands  of  Daniel 
Webster,  whose  arguments  were  apt  to  be  woven 
of  chain-mail  and  riveted  on  both  sides  with 
flawless  bolts.  Perhaps  the  timely  appearance  in 
the  Mediterranean  of  a  stately  frigate,  flying  the 
Stars  and  Stripes  and  exhibiting  a  double  row 
of  grinning  battle  teeth,  gave  an  added  force  to 
the  small  shot  of  diplomacy.  Be  that  as  it 
may,  Kossuth  was  taken  on  board  of  our  man- 
of-war  amid  the  cheers  of  gallant  tars,  who  ached 
only  for  a  more  serious  conflict,  and  after  land 
ing  for  a  while  in  England,  where  he  excited  by 
his  speech  the  usually  slow  and  phlegmatic  blood 


Louis  Kossuth  127 

of  John  Bull  into  ecstacies  of  approval,  he  was 
brought  to  our  embraces.  Never  before  in  the 
annals  of  nations  had  a  single,  unfriended  man 
been  received  by  more  earnest  acclamations  of 
welcome  than  Kossuth  was  received  by  our  peo 
ple.  Even  now,  after  an  interval  of  so  many 
years,  I  still  feel  their  shouts  tingling  in  my 
veins.  He  did  not  come  to  us  with  the  halos 
of  success  around  him  ;  but,  what  was  no  less 
appealing,  he  came  with  the  prestige  of  one  who 
had  deserved  success  and  lost  it  through  no  de 
merits  of  his  own. 

His  welcome,  indeed,  was  all  the  more 
heartfelt  in  that  he  was  not  a  victor,  but  a 
martyr,  representing  in  his  failure  all  the 
downtrodden  nationalities  of  Europe  which, 
by  the  swift  reactions  that  followed  the  spasms 
of  1848,  had  succumbed  to  the  despots.  Hun 
gary  lay  panting  and  breathless  at  the  feet  of 
the  Czar  ;  France  through  distracted  counsels  was 
tottering  toward  the  verge  of  an  abyss,  where 
the  sword  of  an  usurper  gleamed  in  the  distance; 
even  Prussia  looked  up  to  a  lowering  heaven, 
not  yet  wholly  without  stars ;  and  Italy,  like  a 
captive  nightingale,  could  sing  no  more  in  her 
rosy  bower,  but  only  shiver  and  be  silent  in  the 
rasping  breezes  of  the  north.  Kossuth  was  re 
ceived  by  us  as  our  Washington  would  have 


128  Louis  Kossuth 

been  received  by  the  lovers  of  liberty  abroad,  if 
he  had  failed  at  Trenton  or  Monmouth  and  been 
sent  by  the  British  authorities  to  eat  the  bitter 
bread  of  exile  in  foreign  lands.  We  simply  saw 
in  him  a  son  of  the  people,  who,  almost  alone 
and  unfriended,  had  bearded  the  two  most 
powerful  dynasties  of  the  world,  and  though 
stricken  down  in  the  attempt,  still  a  terror  to 
their  eyes.  How  could  our  souls  fail  to  go 
forth  to  him  in  love  and  admiration  ?  With  a 
few  of  us,  perhaps,  the  excitement  was  only  con 
tagious,  a  sort  of  fox  fire  which  glows  but 
does  not  burn,  or  an  auroral  flush  reflected 
from  a  cliff  of  ice  ;  but  with  the  most  of  us  it 
was  sincere  and  outgushing  and  mighty  as  the 
flow  of  the  Mississippi. 

Had  our  feelings  been  dead  at  the  outset,  that 
magical  voice  of  his,  when  it  had  once  got  to 
telling  his  story,  would,  like  the  bugle  call  of  a 
Highland  chief,  have  rallied  every  man  to  his 
side.  Great  Heavens  !  what  oratory  it  was.  I 
have  heard  many  of  the  masters  of  speech, 
but  I  have  heard  none  that  had  a  completer 
mastery  than  he.  In  intellectual  force  and  pene 
tration  he  was  the  equal  of  any  of  them  ;  his 
voice  was  as  melliferous,  his  manner  as  charm 
ing  and  persuasive,  but  his  imagination  was 
warmed  and  colored  by  an  oriental  blood  that 


Louis  Kossuth  129 

was  not  theirs,  and  he  surpassed  them  all  in  a 
depth  and  intensity  of  feeling  which  I  cannot 
describe.  It  was  a  sort  of  perpetual  white  heat, 
which  did  not  blaze  or  flame  out,  and  yet 
was  always  hot  to  the  core.  For  the  most  part 
his  manner  was  easy  and  coloquial  as  if  he 
were  talking  to  a  friend  on  a  point  that  con 
cerned  him  ;  but  when  he  was  suddenly  excited, 
as  some  great  thought  or  image  swam  into  his 
ken,  his  tones  rose  in  the  air  like  the  chords  of 
an  aeolian  when  the  wind  plays  over  its  strings, 
or  like  the  roar  of  a  torrent  that  falls  from  the 
crest  of  a  mountain  and  wakens  the  echoes  of  far- 
off  summits.  His  invective  and  his  pathos  were 
alike  fearfully  intense.  No  one  who  heard  it 
could  ever  forget  the  awful  bitterness  with 
which,  referring  to  the  young  Emperor  of  Aus 
tria,  he  spoke  of  the  "  Beardless  Nero,  the 
murderer  of  my  country ; "  and  how  sponta 
neously  the  tears  gushed  to  the  eyes  when  he 
referred  to  his  dead  comrades  of  the  battle 
field  as  "  the  nameless  demi-gods,  each  with  a 
smile  on  his  face  as  if  he  rejoiced  to  make  so 
poor  a  sacrifice  as  his  life  for  so  great  a  cause 
as  his  country."  Yet  he  was  never  boisterous, 
vehement  or  gesticulative  ;  he  was  equable  like 
the  flow  of  his  own  lordly  Danube,  or  our  own 
more  lordly  Hudson.  He  never  put  himself  in 


130  Louis  Kossuth 

any  tempest  or  whirlwind  of  emotion ;  but  he 
controlled  his  emotions,  and  by  that  self-control 
he  controlled  his  hearers.  In  listening  to  him 
you  soon  lost  all  sense  of  the  speaker,  i.  e.,  of 
his  form,  his  voice,  his  imagery,  his  action,  and 
become  simply  absorbed  in  his  theme. 

It  was  owing  to  this  intensity  of  interest  in 
his  theme  that  Kossuth's  eloquence  was  often 
as  manifest  in  private  as  it  was  in  public.  In 
the  solitude  of  his  chamber,  while  walking  the 
floor,  or  musing  after  dinner,  he  would  pour 
out  his  thoughts  with  the  lyrical  enthusiasm 
or  the  epic  grandeur  of  a  poet,  when  "  his 
muse  of  fire  ascends  the  highest  heaven  of  in 
vention."  I  can  recall  one  time  when  I  was 
almost  alone  with  him  (perhaps  Count  Pulszki 
and  others  of  his  staff  may  have  been  present) 
and  he  began  as  if  communing  with  himself : 
"  Oh  that  the  poor  people  of  Europe  were  as 
free  as  this  good  people  of  the  United  States  ! 
Oh  that  they  could  brush  away  that  rubbish  of 
Kings  and  Princes  who  sit  like  incubi  upon 
their  energies,  and  stifle  the  sources  of  their 
happiness  !  Oh  that  their  standing  armies,  which 
are  a  wasting  pestilence,  might  become  in 
dustrial  armies  !  Behold  !  Europe's  history  is 
reckoned  by  centuries,  and  yet  the  countless 
millions  there  stand  almost  where  they  stood 


Louis  Kossuth  131 

when  America  emerged  from  the  unexplorable 
darkness  that  had  covered  her  as  the  twilight 
of  the  sea  hides  its  gems.  A  few  pilgrims, 
driven  out  for  liberty  sake,  land  on  the  wild 
coast  of  Plymouth,  and  within  a  generation  or 
two  the  unknown  wilderness  blooms  into  an 
empire — '  whole  as  the  marble,  founded  as  the 
rock,  as  broad  and  general  as  the  casing  air.' 
On  the  scarcely  out-rotted  roots  of  the  primitive 
forest  proud  cities  arise,  teeming  with  boundless 
life,  growing  like  the  grass  of  the  prairies  in 
spring,  advancing  like  the  steam-engine,  baffling 
time  and  distance  like  the  telegraph,  and  spread 
ing  the  pulsations  of  their  own  hearts  to  the 
remotest  parts  of  the  world ;  free  as  the  circling 
air,  independent  as  the  soaring  eagle,  active 
as  the  forces  of  nature,  and  more  powerful  than 
the  giants  of  fable."  He  then  went  on  with  a 
prophetic  description  of  what  Europe  would  be 
if  once  set  free,  which  I  can  only  compare 
to  the  sublime  visions  of  St.  John  at  Patmos, 
recorded  in  the  apocalypse  :  "  And  I,  John,  saw 
the  kings  of  the  earth  with  their  armies,  and 
they  were  cast  into  a  lake  of  burning  fire ;  I 
saw  the  thrones  and  they  that  sat  upon  them, 
and  they  were  judged  ;  I  saw  the  dragon,  the 
old  serpent,  which  is  Satan,  and  he  was  bound 
for  a  thousand  years  ;  and  after  that  I  saw  a 


132  Louis  Kossuth 

new  heaven  and  a  new  earth,  and  the  holy 
city,  the  new  Jerusalem,  coming  down  from 
heaven,  prepared  as  a  bride  adorned  for  her 
husband  ;  and  I  heard  a  great  voice,  which 
said :  '  Behold,  the  tabernacle  of  God  is  with 
men.  And  God  shall  wipe  away  all  tears  from 
their  eyes,  and  there  shall  be  no  more  death, 
nor  sorrow,  nor  pain  :  for  the  former  things  are 
passed  away.' ' 

If  Kossuth  had  spoken  only  in  his  own  lan 
guage,  he  would  have  ranked  among  the  most 
eminent  of  orators,  but  it  adds  greatly  to  his 
eminence  that  he  was  able  to  speak  in  several 
languages  with  equal  force  and  facility.  Once, 
in  the  course  of  a  single  week  in  New  York, 
he  was  called  upon  to  address  audiences  com 
posed  respectively  of  Germans,  Italians,  French 
men,  and  Americans,  and  in  each  case  the  ap 
plause  which  followed  nearly  every  sentence 
proved  that  he  spoke  to  their  hearts.  His 
English,  for  which  I  can  vouch,  was  most  re 
markable.  It  was  not  so  much  our  modern 
every-day  English  as  the  English  of  the  Eliza 
bethan  age.  He  had  learned  it,  you  know, 
while  he  was  in  prison,  from  Shakespeare  and 
the  Bible,  and  it  had  in  it  at.  times  the  sinewy 
strength,  the  rounded  fulness,  the  majestic  roll 
of  Hooker  or  Jeremy  Taylor.  Indeed,  it  was 


Louis  Kossuth  133 

curious  to  listen  to  idioms  that  were  like  the 
idioms  which  the  master  poet  of  mankind  has 
put  in  the  mouth  of  Brutus  when  he  pleaded 
for  the  liberties  of  Rome,  or  in  the  mouth  of 
the  banished  Lear  when  he  discoursed  with  the 
elements  and  made  the  oak-cleaving  thunder 
bolts  the  vehicles  and  companions  of  his  pas 
sion. 

Kossuth's  diversity  of  tongue  was  not  more 
notable  than  his  versatility  of  topic.  Having 
but  one  theme,  the  liberation  of  his  country,  it 
might  be  supposed  that  his  handling  of  it  would 
soon  become  monotonous ;  but  it  was  not  so ; 
for,  as  a  skillful  musician  varies  the  leading 
motive  of  his  inspiration  into  innumerable  minor 
harmonies,  so  he  varied  his  great  theme  into  a 
thousand  accessories.  In  speaking  to  the  several 
nationalities,  as  I  have  said,  he  spoke  to  each 
one  in  its  own  tongue,  but  he  also  spoke  to 
each  one  of  the  peculiarities  of  its  position, 
quoting  often  passages  from  its  popular  poets, 
and  citing  the  thrilling  moments  of  its  history. 
When  he  spoke  to  the  Bar,  the  Press,  the 
Municipality,  the  Militia,  Tammany  Hall,  the 
Clergy,  or  Women,  he  spoke  with  a  special  ap 
propriateness  of  subject  and  time  which  each 
one  liked  to  hear.  His  first  address,  at  Staten 
Island,  I  remember,  was  a  declaration  of  the 


134  Louis  Kossuth 

legitimacy  of  the  Hungarian  movement,  and  the 
next  day  he  followed  it  up  at  Castle  Garden 
with  an  outline  of  his  principles  and  aims  as  a 
reformer.  Before  the  Corporation,  as  a  metro 
politan  representative  of  the  people  of  the 
United  States,  he  discussed  our  hereditary  pol 
icy  as  a  Free  State.  Before  the  editors  he  laid 
bare  the  true  idea  of  nationality;  before  the 
lawyers,  Russia's  piratical  invasion  of  interna 
tional  law;  before  the  militia,  the  relations  of  a 
citizen  soldiery  to  the  State  ;  before  Tammany 
Hall,  which  was  then  an  honest  political  asso 
ciation,  the  essential  characteristics  of  a  true 
democracy ;  before  the  clergy,  the  superiority  of 
life  to  faith  ;  and  before  the  women,  the  claims 
of  liberty  to  their  undying  devotion. 

From  New  York  Kossuth  went  to  Philadel 
phia,  and  there,  in  Independence  Hall,  his  voice 
rang  the  original  proclamation  of  the  old  bell,  of 
"  liberty  to  all  the  land,"  while  he  compared  a 
spurious  French  republicanism  to  that  nobler 
form  of  it  which  had  been  cradled  in  the  sacred 
chamber  in  which  he  was  heard.  At  Baltimore, 
the  city  of  monuments,  he  showed  that  the  strug 
gles  which  they  commemorated  were  the  same  in 
aspiration  and  aim  as  the  struggles  in  which  he 
had  been  engaged.  Soon  after,  at  Washington, 
in  the  presence  of  the  Supreme  Court,  the  Senate, 


Louis  Kossuth  135 

and  the  House  of  Representatives,  he  dwelt  upon 
the  rightful  relations  of  America  to  the  Old 
World  ;  but  his  great  triumph  in  Washington  was 
at  a  banquet,  at  which,  discoursing  of  the  recip 
rocal  duties  of  nations,  he  carried  with  him  many 
distinguished  leaders,  among  them  Stephen  A. 
Douglas,  a  candidate  for  the  Presidency,  and 
won  from  his  righthand  neighbor,  Daniel  Webster, 
himself  the  author  of  orations  not  surpassed  in 
the  Greek  pages  of  Demosthenes  or  in  the  Latin 
pages  of  Cicero,  an  outburst  of  irrepressible  ap 
plause. 

From  Washington  Kossuth  journeyed  to 
Columbus,  to  Cincinnati,  to  Jackson,  to  New  Or 
leans,  to  Mobile,  to  Charleston,  to  Richmond, 
back  to  Albany,  to  Salem,  to  Worcester,  to  Bos 
ton  ;  touching,  as  he  passed,  on  the  weakness  of 
Despotism,  on  the  Balance  of  Power,  on  a  Sound 
and  Honest  Commerce,  and  on  Democracy  as 
the  Spirit  of  the  Age,  in  strains  of  commanding 
eloquence.  Arrived  in  New  England,  he  seemed 
to  know  the  minutest  events  of  her  history  as 
well  as  he  knew  those  of  his  own  country,  so  that 
at  Lexington  and  Concord  the  embattled  farmers 
rose  from  their  graves  "  to  fire  the  shot  heard 
round  the  world,"  and  in  Faneuil  Hall  the  spirits 
of  the  Adamses,  the  Otises  and  the  Hancocks 
laid  over  again  the  foundations  of  that  constitu- 


136  Louis  Kossuth 

tional  government,  which  is  now  the  strength 
and  glory  of  sixty  millions  of  freemen.  His  last 
speech  was  given  here  at  New  York  on  the  Fu 
ture  of  Nations,  when  he  traced  the  history  of 
the  old  civilizations,  ascribing  their  ruin  to  the 
weakness  of  their  people,  and  proclaiming  with 
prophetic  earnestness  that  our  duration  would 
depend,  not  upon  the  exuberant  gifts  of  soil  and 
climate,  not  upon  material  prosperity,  however 
rich  and  glowing,  not  upon  the  inscrutable  de 
crees  of  Providence,  but  upon  the  manliness,  the 
integrity,  the  conscience,  and  the  love  of  justice 
of  our  individual  men. 

Kossuth's  mission  to  the  United  States  was 
not,  in  all  respects,  a  success  such  as  he  desired, 
but  neither  was  it  a  failure.  The  principal 
points  that  he  presented  were:  First,  that  Rus 
sia,  by  her  interference  in  the  domestic 
struggle  of  Hungary,  had  committed  a  gross 
breach  of  the  laws  of  nations,  which  could  not 
be  regarded  with  indifference  by  other  nations, 
and  especially  by  the  United  States,  whose  exist 
ence  was  due  to  such  a  struggle  ;  second,  that 
the  people  of  the  United  States  ought  to  insist 
upon  the  rights  of  an  open  commerce  with  all 
the  people  of  Europe,  whether  they  were  in  a 
state  of  revolt  or  not  against  their  own  govern 
ments  ;  and  third,  that  the  people  of  Hungary 


Louis  Kossuth  137 

were  and  ought  to  remain  a  free  and  indepen 
dent  nation,  exercising  the  right  of  self-govern 
ment  without  intervention  on  the  part  of  Austria 
and  other  monarchies.  To  these  points,  as  sen 
timents,  no  one  could  object ;  on  the  contrary, 
they  were  accepted  with  tumultuary  plaudits ; 
many  of  our  prominent  statesmen  gave  a  nomi 
nal  adherence  to  them,  at  least ;  and  Kossuth 
was  encouraged  to  raise  money  on  his  own  con 
ditional  notes  to  help  the  propagation  of  them 
abroad.  As  sentiments,  forms  of  speech  with  no 
gunpowder  behind  them,  they  were  scarcely 
more  than  a  brutum  fulmen,  a  flash  of  heat 
lightning,  which  does  not  strike,  or  a  mutter  of 
Salmonean  thunder  that  carries  no  bolt.  They 
were  wholly  harmless,  yet,  put  the  gunpowder 
behind  them  and  you  are  launched  at  once  into 
a  career  of  active  armed  intervention  in  the 
quarrels  of  foreign  nations.  But  is  that  advis 
able  ?  Unless  a  nation  chooses  to  make  itself  a 
Don  Quixote,  bound  to  rescue  from  wrong  all 
the  Dulcineas  of  the  globe,  including  the  swarthy 
queens  of  the  South  Seas,  or  an  Anarcharsis 
Cloots,  a  spokesman  for  the  universe,  its  foreign 
policy  must  not  be  a  matter  of  mere  sentiment 
but  of  fixed  principle. 

It   was  objected  to  Kossuth's    demands,    and 
particularly    by    Henry   Clay,  who  was  then  on 


138  Louis  Kossuth 

his  deathbed,  that  they  contravened  our  tra 
ditional  attitude  of  neutrality,  as  it  had  been 
prescribed  by  Washington  in  his  Farewell 
Address,  which  ought  to  be  regarded  as  the 
final  testament  of  the  Father  of  his  Coun 
try  to  his  children.  Mr.  Clay  and  other  ob 
jectors,  however,  had  forgotten  that  our  policy 
of  neutrality  was  by  no  means  fixed  and  abso 
lute.  We  had  ourselves  announced,  in  a  message 
of  President  Monroe,  that  no  foreign  despotism 
should  ever  put  a  foot  on  this  continent,  either 
north  or  south.  Mr.  Clay  himself,  in  one  of  the 
most  persuasive  speeches  he  ever  made,  had 
pleaded  the  cause  of  the  South  American  re 
publics  against  the  domination  of  Spain,  and 
proposed  our  taking  part  in  the  Congress  of 
Panama.  Daniel  Webster,  animated  by  a  re 
membrance  of  the  grand  old  Greeks,  who  were 
our  teachers  in  politics  as  in  all  the  finer  arts, 
and  had  left  their  bones  on  the  ever-memorable 
fields  of  Thermopylae  and  Marathon  in  defence  of 
national  independence,  never  spoke  with  a  more 
Doric  solidity  or  a  more  classic  beauty  than 
when  he  defended  modern  Greece  in  its  revolt 
against  the  Turks.  He  demonstrated  that  the 
claims  of  the  allied  powers  of  Europe  were  con 
trary  to  reason,  destructive  of  progress,  and 
wholly  incompatible  with  the  independence  of 


Louis  Kossuth  139 

nations.  "  There  are  but  two  forms  of  govern 
ment,"  he  said,  "  the  absolute  and  the  regulated, 
or  constitutional ;  and  our  sympathies,  our  assist 
ance,  our  power  must  ever  be  on  the  side  of 
that  form  of  which  we  are  the  most  illustrious 
exponents.  As  Greece,  in  the  olden  times,  had 
been  the  triumphant  conqueror  of  tyranny  and 
ignorance,  it  was  but  an  act  of  gratitude,  for 
us  in  the  new  times,  to  help  her  to  maintain 
her  glory."  Even  in  his  later  correspondence 
with  Baron  Hulseman,  the  Austrian  Charge 
d' Affairs,  in  vindication  of  our  hospitality  to 
Kossuth  himself,  he  went  quite  as  far  in  his 
expressions  as  anything  that  Kossuth  had  said. 
But  he  went  no  further,  nor  could  any  one  of 
us  go  any  further  for  a  very  good  reason.  We 
happened  to  be  living  in  an  enormous  glass 
house  and  could  not  approve  of  an  indiscriminate 
throwing  of  stones.  In  other  words,  we  were 
keeping  three  millions  of  human  beings  in  a 
remorseless  bondage,  against  the  pity  and  sense 
of  justice  of  the  world,  and  could  not  allow  of 
foreign  interposition.  A  few  slight  tentatives 
at  interference  on  the  part  of  England  had 
aroused  our  sensibilities  to  frenzy.  Kossuth  was 
aware  of  this  weak  spot,  and  did  not  touch  it 
directly,  yet  his  constant  reiteration  of  the  doc 
trine  of  human  freedom  revived  and  kindled  our 


140  Louis  Kossuth 

earlier  feelings.  As  a  monk  of  the  Middle  Ages, 
taking  up  a  palimpsest  all'  blurred  with  mould, 
would  rub  the  scrawlings  upon  it  (some  dusty 
chronicle  of  a  convent,  perhaps),  until  he  re 
vealed  a  treatise  by  Cicero,  or  a  poem  of  Virgil, 
so  he  brought  back  to  us  our  original  inspira 
tions.  How  was  it  possible  for  him  to  refer  so 
warmly  to  his  own  poor  Hungarians,  and  to 
prove  their  right  to  a  part  in  the  making  of 
their  laws,  without  recalling  our  own  funda 
mental  principle  as  proclaimed  in  the  Declara 
tion  ?  Why  should  we  sympathize  with  the 
oppressed  people  of  Europe,  and  be  indifferent 
to  the  oppressed  Africans  within  our  threshold  ? 
Though  wearing  the  burnished  livery  of  the  sun, 
were  they  not  men  and  brothers  like  all  the 
rest  ?  Should  we  open  our  hearts  and  our 
purses  to  the  far-off  sufferers,  and  close  them 
to  the  sufferers  at  home  ? 

One  coincidence,  which  perhaps  you  have 
never  observed,  is  remarkable.  In  1850  it  was  by 
common  consent  of  our  two  great  political  parties 
agreed  that  slavery  was  forever  settled  ;  it  was 
settled  by  a  compromise  that  was  never  again  to 
be  touched,  and  thenceforth  a  thing  taboo.  Miss 
Martineau,  when  she  was  here,  said  that  Ameri 
can  politicians  who  disagreed  on  every  other  topic 
agreed  on  this,  that  slavery  was  too  sacred  a 


Louis  Kossuth  141 

theme  even  to  be  discussed.  They  who  dared  to 
discuss  it  were  proper  objects  for  the  vengeance 
of  the  mob.  Well,  Kossuth  talked  in  1851-1852, 
and  in  less  than  four  years  from  that  time  the 
anti-slavery  agitation  had  shattered  the  old  par 
ties  to  pieces,  called  into  being  a  new  party,  put 
the  young  Pathfinder  of  the  West  at  its  head  as  a 
candidate  for  the  Presidency,  and  given  him  more 
than  a  million  and  a  quarter  of  votes.  A  senti 
ment  born  of  heart-beats  had  run  like  the  current 
of  an  electric  battery  from  soul  to  soul,  till  it  had 
fused  them  into  one,  as  it  has  since  fused  sixty 
millions  of  people  into  a  republic  where  only 
free  men  breathe. 

Kossuth's  plans,  however,  were  nullified,  not 
so  much  by  our  timidity  as  by  the  Coup  d' Etat  of 
Napoleon  the  Third  in  France.  I  was  with  him 
at  dinner,  with  a  few  others,  when  the  report 
came  that  the  President  of  the  French  Republic 
had  betrayed  his  trust  and  proclaimed  himself  an 
Emperor.  At  first  he  was  greatly  dejected  by 
the  news,  but  rallying  his  spirits  in  a  moment,  he 
exclaimed,  "  Oh  that  your  Congress  would  vote 
me  one  of  your  frigates,  or  that  your  rich  mer 
chants  would  buy  me  one,  that  I  might  proceed  to 
Hungary,  fill  it  with  the  brave  sons  of  the  Mag 
yar,  and,  landing  in  Italy  or  France,  put  a  stopper 
upon  this  outburst  of  hell  !  "  This  was  not  boast- 


142  Louis  Kossuth 

ing,  but  a  simple,  honest  expression  of  his  confi 
dence  in  his  power  to  rally  the  masses  to  his 
flag.  None  the  less,  it  was  scarcely  more  than 
dreaming;  the  Empire  was  sustained  by  the 
plebiscite,  and  it  took  twenty  years,  with  the 
genius  of  Bismarck  and  the  sword  of  Von  Moltke 
to  the  fore,  to  prick  the  tremendous  wind-bag 
which  seemed  like  a  real  thunder  cloud  in  the  air. 
Kossuth  returned  to  Europe  in  1852,  going 
into  retirement  at  Turin,  Italy,  and  few  things  in 
history  are  more  pathetic  than  those  later  days  of 
exile  and  obscurity.  The  world  seemed  to  have 
suddenly  receded  from  him,  leaving  him  alone 
with  his  memories.  He,  the  idol  of  his  country 
and  the  welcome  guest  of  the  foremost  civilized 
nations,  sunk  as  by  some  hostile  enchantment  into 
a  cave  of  abandonment  and  forgetfulness.  So 
great  was  the  contrast  between  his  early  and  later 
days  that  it  still  brings  tears  to  the  eyes,  and  what 
renders  it  the  more  touching  is  that  it  was  nobly 
self-imposed.  He  might  have  returned  to  Hun 
gary,  as  many  of  his  companions  did,  and  re 
sumed  a  high  place  in  her  councils,  but  that  im 
plied  that  he  should  ask  forgiveness  for  deeds  that 
he  considered  his  special  title  to  an  immortal 
glory.  It  implied  that  he  should  recognize  as 
King  of  his  native  land  an  Emperor  to  whom  he 
had  sworn  an  eternal  hostility,  as  he  had  sworn 


Louis  Kossuth  143 

it  to  the  very  principle  of  monarchy.  No,  better 
for  him  it  was  to  be  an  outcast  than  an  apostate. 
Willingly  his  grateful  friends  would  have  heaped 
him  with  the  favors  of  fortune,  but  his  self-respect 
would  not  allow  him  to  accept  of  charity  when 
he  was  entitled  to  justice.  At  the  worst,  he 
might,  without  loss  of  honor,  like  the  blind  old 
Belisarius,  have  gone  upon  the  highways  and 
begged  for  an  obole  from  those  whose  cause  he 
had  defended  at  the  cost  of  all  he  held  dear,  but 
he  preferred  to  work  for  his  living,  to  write,  to 
lecture,  to  teach  the  languages,  and  so  honestly 
earn  the  crust  that  nourished  him  and  the  rude 
roof  that  sheltered  his  head.  One  grand  feature 
of  his  character  was  that,  in  his  destitution  and 
advancing  age  he  did  not  repine  or  fret  under 
his  reverses,  or,  like  the  imperial  captive  of  St. 
Helena,  break  his  beak  on  the  bars  of  his  cage 
while  he  screamed  with  impotent  resentment 
against  his  fate.  At  most  a  plaintive  word 
escaped  him  now  and  then,  as  when  he  said, 
"  I  am  like  a  wandering  bird ;  nay,  worse  than  a 
wandering  bird,  for  he  may  find  a  summer  home 
among  his  fellows,  while  I  am  an  outcast  on  the 
face  of  the  earth,  having  no  citizenship  anywhere." 
Yet  he  never  despaired  of  himself  or  his  cause. 
"  When  I  was  formerly  an  exile  as  now,"  he 
wrote,  "  and  arrogant  tyrants  debated  about  my 


144  Louis  Kossuth 

blood ;  when  my  infant  children  were  in  prison, 
and  my  wife,  the  faithful  companion  of  my  sor 
rows,  was  hunted  like  a  deer  by  the  sleuth  hounds 
of  power ;  when  the  heart  of  my  old  mother  was 
breaking  under  the  shattered  fortunes  of  her 
house,  all  of  us  cast  to  the  winds  like  the  yellow 
leaves  of  a  fallen  tree  ;  when  my  fatherland,  my 
sweet  fatherland,  was  one  half  murdered  and  the 
other  half  in  chains  ;  when  the  sky  of  freedom  was 
dark  down  to  the  horizon,  and  still  darkening, 
nowhere  a  ray  of  hope,  nowhere  a  spark  of  con 
solation,  I  did  not  despair,  nor  shall  I  ever  de 
spair,  until  man  sinks  back  into  his  primitive 
bruteism  and  the  God  of  Heaven  has  for 
gotten  His  attributes  of  Justice  and  Truth." 
What  a  sublime  patience,  and  what  a  sublime 
hope  ! 

Kossuth  was  not,  however,  wholly  inactive  in 
these  last  years  of  seclusion  and  adversity.  When 
in  1865  Italy  strove  again  to  rid  herself  of  the 
Austrian  domination,  he  joined  with  Mazzini  and 
Garibaldi,  he  consulted  with  Cavour  and  Napo 
leon  III.,  whom  he  detested,  to  help  in  her 
deliverance.  He  organized  a  Hungarian  corps, 
which  did  good  service  till  the  false-hearted 
peace  at  Villa  Franca  darkened  the  general  hope. 
Again,  when  France  and  England  combined 
against  Russia,  that  "  rock  on  which  the  world's 


Louis  Kossuth  145 

sighs  for  freedom  are  always  breaking,"  he  sent 
his  Hungarian  friends  to  join  the  allies,  and  again 
he  failed  to  reap  the  reward  which  his  soul  de 
sired.  It  was  after  these  disappointments  Kos 
suth  repeated,  in  a  book  written  a  few  years  be 
fore  he  died,  that  he  and  his  few  adherents  were 
mere  wanderers  of  the  deserts,  without  a  country 
or  a  home.  And  such,  indeed,  was  the  outward 
fact,  but  his  death  itself  disclosed  a  silver  lining 
to  the  cloud.  Death,  which  we  are  apt  to  picture 
as  a  grim  skeleton,  with  a  sweeping  scythe  in  his 
hand,  carries  also  in  another  hand  the  wand  of  a 
magician,  which  transforms  the  ugliest  realities 
into  realms  of  splendor  and  beauty.  The  same 
touch  that  laid  this  self-styled  homeless  and 
friendless  man  in  the  tomb,  aroused  a  country 
that  had  been  silently  regenerated  by  means 
of  him,  and  five  thousand  compatriots  followed 
his  coffin  with  garlands  wet  with  the  dew  of 
tears.  Five  hundred  thousand  others,  scat 
tered  over  the  entire  globe,  uttered  their 
speeches  and  songs  of  admiration.  The  oblo 
quies  that  had  pursued  him  in  life  were  changed 
into  hosannas,  and  the  mud  once  flung  upon 
him,  like  the  mystic  weeds  and  thorns  in  the  lap 
of  St.  Elizabeth,  bloomed  into  wreaths  of  lilies 
and  roses.  Nay,  is  there  not  reason  to  hope,  as 
his  spirit  passed  into  another  world,  that  all  "The 


146  Louis  Kossuth 

inheritors  of  unfilled    renown  "    rose   from  their 
thrones  to  honor  him  ? 

Kossuth  refused  to  return  to  Hungary,  yet  he 
was  there  all  the  time,  for  his  thoughts  pervaded 
her  counsels  and  shaped  her  destinies.  Hungary, 
no  longer  a  dependent,  is  an  integral  and  equal 
half  of  the  empire  ;  the  old  barbaric  laws  are 
repealed  or  modified,  and  his  principles  are  in 
scribed  on  the  banners  of  her  statesmen  and 
embalmed  in  the  hearts  of  her  people.  As  in 
that  old  legend  of  the  Huns,  his  ancestors,  which 
Kaulbach  has  transferred  to  the  canvas,  and 
which  tells  how  in  a  battle  with  the  Romans, 
when  every  man  was  stricken  dead  to  the  earth, 
he  yet  rose  to  renew  the  battle  in  the  air,  so  in 
the  battle  for  the  rights  of  humanity  the  fight 
goes  on  even  when  the  combatants  have  per 
ished.  In  the  viewless  aspirations  of  the  human 
heart,  in  the  silent  forges  of  human  thought,  it 
still  goes  on,  and  it  will  go  on  till  truth  and 
justice  have  triumphed,  and  man,  every  man, 
shall  stand  in  the  full  dignity  of  his  manhood, 
which  is  the  highest  realization  of  Godhead  that 
we  can  know  or  even  conceive. 


JOHN    JAMES    AUDUBON 


JOHN  JAMES  AUDUBON 


LADIES  AND  GENTLEMEN: 

Mr.  Carlyle,  in  his  famous  book  on  "  Heroes 
and  Hero  Worship,"  has  told  us  of  the  hero  in 
the  several  aspects  of  Divinity,  Prophet,  Priest, 
Poet,  King,  and  Man  of  Letters,  but  he  over 
looked  one  phase  of  the  character,  which  human 
history  knows  :  the  Hero  as  Man  of  Science. 
A  little  before  he  was  writing  his  volume  there 
roamed  in  the  primeval  forests  of  America  a 
simple  naturalist,  whose  life  had  exhibited  every 
quality  of  prowess  and  endurance,  every  trait  of 

*  As  long  ago  as  1842,  I  made  the  acquaintance  of  Mr. 
Audubon,  and  wrote  about  him  in  the  Democratic  Review  of 
that  year.  Again,  eleven  years  later,  in  1853,  I  prepared  a 
sketch  of  him  for  a  volume  published  by  Messrs.  G.  P. 
Putnam  &  Co.,  called  "The  Homes  of  American  Authors." 
These  papers,  a  short  time  after  his  death,  were  condensed 
into  an  address,  which  was  read  to  a  small  literary  circle  at 
Roslyn,  Long  Island.  The  recent  erection  of  a  monument  to 
his  memory,  in  Trinity  Cemetery,  by  the  New  York  Academy 
of  Sciences,  has  induced  me  to  revise  this  address,  in  order  to 
present  his  extraordinary  career  to  the  minds  of  a  later 
generation. 

149 


150  John  James  Audubon 

manly  and  heroic  endeavor,  that  is  to  be  found 
in  the  most  illustrious  of  his  Great  Men.  If 
we  may  believe  what  his  fast  friend  Emerson 
has  said  of  heroism,  that  it  was  "  a  contempt 
for  safety  and  ease,"  "  a  self-trust  which  slights 
the  restraints  of  prudence  in  the  plentitude  of 
its  energy  and  power,"  "  a  mind  of  such  a 
balance  that  no  disturbance  can  shake  its  will, 
which  pleasantly,  and  as  it  were  merrily,  ad 
vances  to  its  own  music,"  the  "extreme  of  in 
dividual  nature,"  "  obedience  to  the  impulses  of 
individual  character,"  "  undaunted  boldness  and 
a  fortitude  not  to  be  weaned  out,"  then  was 
John  James  Audubon  one  of  the  truest  of  the 
world's  heroes,  worthy  to  be  ranked  and  re 
corded  on  the  same  page  with  the  most  dis 
tinguished  of  human  celebrities. 

For  more  than  half  a  century  he  followed 
with  almost  religious  devotion  a  beautiful  and 
elevated  pursuit,  enlarging  its  boundaries  by  his 
discoveries,  and  illustrating  its  objects  by  his 
art.  In  all  climates  and  in  all  weathers, 
scorched  by  tropic  suns  and  frozen  by  arctic 
colds ;  now  diving  fearlessly  into  the  densest 
forests  and  now  wandering  alone  over  desolate 
prairies,  far  beyond  the  haunts  of  civilization, 
and  frequented  only  by  savage  beasts  or  more 
savage  men ;  in  perils,  in  difficulties  and  in 


John  James  Audubon  151 

doubt ;  listening  only  to  the  music  of  the  birds 
and  the  lofty  inspirations  of  his  own  thoughts, 
he  kept  for  a  lifetime  on  an  original  path,  which 
to  some  seemed  chimerical  and  to  others  utterly 
useless,  until  in  the  later  years  and  fading  twi 
light  of  his  days  his  efforts  were  crowned  with 
success.  The  records  of  man's  endeavor  con 
tain  few  nobler  examples  of  strength  of  purpose 
and  indefatigable  zeal. 

John  James  Audubon  was  born  on  the  4th 
of  May,  1780,  in  Louisiana,  a  French  province 
still,  on  a  plantation  near  the  city  of  New 
Orleans.  Both  the  time  and  place  of  his  birth 
were  significant.  It  was  in  the  spring  of  the 
year,  when  the  flowers  and  birds  had  just 
awakened  from  their  winter's  sleep,  and  among 
the  orange  groves  which  were  giving  forth  their 
richest  perfumes.  Cradled  in  the  open  air, 
under  grand  secular  trees,  he  may  be  said  to 
have  been  lulled  to  his  slumbers  by  that  prince 
of  melodious  polyglots,  the  mocking-bird. 

By  parentage  Audubon  was  of  mingled 
French  and  Spanish  blood.  His  father,  a  naval 
officer  under  Napoleon,  was  one  of  those  rest 
less  spirits  which  the  titanic  genius  of  the  great 
commander  had  called  forth  in  France,  and  to 
whom  the  whole  surface  of  the  earth  was  an 
inheritance  and  a  scene  for  exploits.  It  must 


152  John  James  Audubon 

have  been  a  pretty  vigorous  stock,  as  the 
grandfather,  a  poor  fisherman  of  La  Vendee, 
had  a  family  "  of  which  twenty-one  grew  to 
years  of  maturity."  His  father  was  the  twen 
tieth  born,  and  was  sent  into  the  world  when 
he  was  but  twelve  years  old,  "  with  a  shirt,  a 
warm  dress,  a.  cane,  and  the  old  man's  bless 
ing,"  to  seek  his  fortune  as  he  could.  He  set 
out  as  a  boy  before  the  mast,  and  at  seventeen 
was  rated  an  able-bodied  seaman  ;  at  twenty 
commanded  a  vessel;  in  a  few  years  accumu 
lated  a  small  fortune  in  the  trade  with  St. 
Domingo ;  made  purchases  in  Louisiana,  Vir 
ginia,  and  Pennsylvania ;  joined  the  French 
forces  under  Lafayette,  who  helped  us  in  our 
Revolution;  and  afterward  was  a  captain  or 
commodore  in  the  imperial  navy,  living  to  the 
age  of  ninety. 

From  him  the  naturalist  inherited  his  fine 
form,  his  enterprise,  his  vigor,  his  simplicity, 
and  his  honesty.  The  mother,  of  Spanish  deri 
vation,  named  Anne  Moynette,  whom  the  father 
had  married  in  Louisiana,  was  taken  after  the 
birth  of  three  sons  and  a  daughter  to  the  estate 
of  Aux  Cayes,  in  St.  Domingo,  where  she  was 
put  to  death  during  a  terrible  insurrection  of 
the  blacks.  The  children,  with  some  plate  and 
money,  were  saved  by  a  few  of  the  more  faith- 


John  James  Audubon  153 

ful  servants,  and  subsequently  carried  to  France, 
where,  on  a  beautiful  estate  on  the  Loire  and 
under  the  care  of  an  indulgent  stepmother,  John 
James  began  his  more  formal  education.  His 
father  destined  him  to  the  navy,  and  he  was 
taught  mathematics,  geography,  navigation, 
music,  drawing,  and  dancing.  He  took  to  the 
music,  and  soon  became  somewhat  proficient  in 
the  violin,  the  flute,  the  flageolet,  and  the  gui 
tar.  His  drawing  master  was  the  afterwards 
celebrated  painter  David,  but,  as  he  says,  "  the 
eyes  and  noses  of  giants,  and  the  heads  of 
horses  represented  in  ancient  sculpture,  were 
not  the  themes  I  would  be  at "  ;  so  he  stole 
away  from  the  schools  to  the  woods,  where  he 
tried  to  sketch  more  living  objects.  Alas,  in 
his  ignorance,  "his  pencil  gave  birth  to  a  family 
of  cripples.  So  maimed  were  most  of  them 
that  they  resembled  the  mangled  corpses  on  a 
field  of  battle."  Yet  he  persevered,  and  he 
produced  hundreds  of  these  rude  sketches  in 
the  course  of  the  year,  to  be  regularly  made  a 
bonfire  of  on  the  anniversary  of  his  birthday. 

In  his  sixteenth  year  John  James  was  sent 
back  to  America  to  occupy  and  superintend  a 
farm  called  Mill  Grove,  which  the  father  pos 
sessed  on  the  banks  of  Perkioming  Creek,  a 
branch  of  the  Schuylkill  near  Philadelphia.  This 


154  John  James  Andubon 

was  just  what  he  wished,  as  he  could  hunt,  fish, 
draw  and  raise  all  sorts  of  fowls  to  his  heart's 
content.  "  One  of*  my  fancies  then,"  he  writes, 
"  was  to  be  ridiculously  fond  of  dress,  to  hunt 
in  black  satin  breeches,  wear  pumps  while  shoot 
ing,  and  display  the  finest  ruffled  shirts."  But 
he  had  no  vices,  ate  no  butcher's  meat,  lived 
chiefly  on  fruits  and  vegetables,  and  never  drank 
spirits  or  even  wine.  He  was,  however,  exces 
sively  fond  of  dancing,  attended  all  the  balls 
given  in  the  neighborhood,  and  by  his  fine  looks 
became  an  object  of  admiration  to  the  fair  sex. 
A  young  cotemporary,  Mr.  William  Bakewell, 
afterwards  his  brother-in-law,  describes  his  house, 
however,  as  not  by  any  means  that  of  a  dandy. 
It  was  already  an  attractive  museum.  "  The 
walls  were  festooned  with  all  sorts  of  birds'  eggs, 
blown  out  and  strung  on  a  thread.  The  chimney- 
piece  was  covered  with  stuffed  squirrels,  raccoons 
and  opossums,  the  shelves  were  covered  with 
fishes,  frogs,  snakes  and  other  reptiles,  and  his 
rough  paintings  of  birds  were  arrayed  along  the 
walls.  He  was  an  admirable  marksman,  an  ex 
pert  swimmer  and  skater,  a  clever  and  graceful 
rider,  and  noted  for  his  great  strength  as  well  as 
for  the  elegance  of  his  figure  and  carriage — alto 
gether  a  country  Crichton. 

His   next   door    neighbor,  an  Englishman    by 


John  James  Audubon  155 

birth  (though  of  French  descent,  the  English  hav 
ing  changed  his  name  of  Bayquille  into  Bakewell), 
was  duly  despised  by  the  son  of  the  Gaul,  until 
he  discovered,  by  a  chance  visit,  that  the  house 
contained  a  fair  daughter,  with  whom  the  son  of 
the  Gaul  soon  struck  up  a  friendship.  It  was 
agreed  that  he  should  teach  the  lass  the  art  of 
drawing,  while  the  lass  taught  the  lad  a  more 
perfect  pronunciation  of  English ;  and,  as  it  might 
have  been  expected  in  the  case,  this  Lucy  Bake- 
well  became  to  the  young  man,  like  Words 
worth's  Lucy,  "  fair  as  a  star,  when  only  one  is 
shining  in  the  sky."  In  due  time  they  were 
betrothed,  but  before  marriage  paternal  prudence 
suggested  that  as  the  collecting  and  drawing  of 
birds  was  not  likely  to  prove  a  stable  or  affluent 
source  of  income,  the  youth  should  go  to  the  city 
to  be  trained  in  some  lucrative  commercial  pur 
suit.  He  tried  the  experiment  in  New  York,  but 
did  not  turn  out  an  apt  pupil  of  tare  and  tret  ; 
and  then,  after  a  visit  of  a  year  or  two  to  France, 
where  he  was  enlisted  in  the  French  navy  as 
midshipman,  but  never  served,  he  returned  to 
marry  his  dear  Lucy  and  be  very  happy  (1808). 
No  man  ever  made  a  better  choice  of  a  wife. 
This  woman  became  the  veriest  companion  of  his 
life,  sharing  throughout  in  his  pursuits,  his  sacri 
fices,  his  adventures,  and  contributing  to  his  sue- 


156  John  James  Audubon 

cess  not  only  by  her  sympathy,  but  by  her  active 
exertions.  She  was  willing  at  all  times  to  en 
dure  any  hardships  that  her  husband  might  fol 
low  the  bent  of  his  genius,  and  show  to  the  world 
what  her  unerring  instinct  had  at  once  discerned 
— the  genuine  stuff  of  manhood  and  ability  that 
was  in  him.  It  was  determined,  soon  after  their 
marriage,  that  they  should  begin  under  the  most 
favorable  circumstances,  and  for  that  purpose  he 
sold  the  property  at  Mill  Grove,  and,  with  the 
proceeds,  departed  for  the  great  West,  that  al 
ready  loomed  before  the  eyes  of  aspiring  mortals 
as  the  proper  place  to  achieve  a  prodigious  for 
tune  with  very  little  effort. 

Accordingly,  passing  over  to  Pittsburg,  and 
providing  himself  with  a  mattress,  guns  and  am 
munition,  a  skiff,  and  two  stout  negroes  to  help 
in  the  rowing — he  got  afloat  with  his  young  wife 
on  the  bosom  of  the  Ohio,  "the  queen  of  rivers," 
and,  like  Ulysses,  "  sailed  toward  the  sunset  and 
the  baths  of  all  the  western  stars."  The  modes 
of  travel  at  that  day  were  strongly  in  contrast 
with  the  more  easy  and  expeditious  modes  of 
the  present  time.  It  was  in  the  month  of  Octo 
ber  that  the  little  convoy  set  off,  and  his  descrip 
tion  of  the  voyage,  in  the  midst  of  the  rich  dis 
play  of  the  season,  is  full  of  poetry.  "  Every  tree," 
he  says,  "  was  hung  with  long  and  flowing  festoons 


John  James  Audubon  157 

of  vines,  or  loaded  with  clustered  fruits  of  varied 
brilliancy,  their  rich  carmine  mingling  beauti 
fully  with  the  yellow  foliage  which  yet  predomi 
nated  over  the  green  leaves,  with  reflections  of 
livelier  tints  from  the  clear  stream  than  ever 
painter  portrayed  or  poet  imagined ;  for  the  sun 
was  giving  forth  those  glowing  hues  which  pro 
claim  the  Indian  summer.  They  glided  down  the 
stream,  meeting  no  other  ripple  than  that  formed 
by  the  propulsion  of  their  own  boat  Now  and 
then  a  large  catfish  rose  to  the  surface  in  pur 
suit  of  a  shoal  of  fry,  which,  starting  simulta 
neously  from  the  water,  like  so  many  silvery 
arrows,  scattered  a  shower  of  light,  while  the 
pursuer,  with  open  jaws,  seized  the  stragglers, 
and  with  a  splash  of  his  tail  disappeared.  At 
night,  a  tinkling  of  bells  along  the  shore  told 
them  that  cattle  were  gently  roving  from  valley 
to  valley  in  search  of  food  or  returning  to  their 
distant  homes.  The  hooting  of  a  great  owl,  or 
the  muffled  noise  of  its  wings,  as  it  sailed 
smoothly  over  the  stream,  arrested  the  ear,  with 
the  sound  of  the  boatman's  horn  as  it  came 
winding  more  and  more  softly  from  afar.  When 
daylight  returned  many  songsters  burst  forth  with 
echoing  notes,  which  grew  mellower  with  the  dis 
tance.  Here  and  there  the  lonely  cabin  of  a  squat 
ter  struck  the  eye,  giving  note  of  a  commencing 


158  John  James  Audubon 

civilization.  Sluggish  flatboats  were  overtaken 
and  passed,  some  laden  with  products  from  the 
headwaters  of  streams  that  flow  into  the  Ohio, 
and  others  crowded  with  emigrants  in  search  of 
a  new  home  in  the  boundless  solitudes  of  the 
far  west."  "When  I  think  of  that  time,"  Audu 
bon  writes  at  the  close  of  his  narrative,  "  and 
call  back  to  mind  the  beauty  and  the  grandeur 
of  those  almost  uninhabited  shores  ;  when  I  pic 
ture  to  myself  the  dense  forests,  with  their  lofty 
summits,  that  everywhere  spread  along  the  hills 
and  overhung  the  margin  of  the  stream,  unmo 
lested  by  the  axe  of  the  settler;  \\hen  I  know 
how  dearly  purchased  the  safe  navigation  of  that 
river  has  been  by  the  blood  of  many  worthy 
Virginians  ;  when  I  see  that  no  longer  any  abor 
igines  are  to  be  found  there,  and  that  the  vast 
herds  of  elks,  deer,  and  buffaloes  which  once  pas 
tured  on  those  hills  and  in  those  valleys,  making 
to  themselves  great  roads  to  the  several  salt 
springs,  no  longer  exist ;  when  I  reflect  that  all 
this  portion  of  our  Union,  instead  of  being  in 
a  state  of  nature,  is  now  covered  with  villages, 
farms,  and  towns,  where  the  din  of  hammers  and 
machinery  is  constantly  heard ;  that  the  woods 
are  fast  disappearing  under  the  axe  by  day 
and  fire  by  night;  that  hundreds  of  steamboats 
are  gliding  to  and  fro  over  the  whole  length  of 


John  James  Audubon  159 

the  majestic  river,  forcing  commerce  to  take  root 
and  prosper  at  every  spot ;  when  I  see  the 
surplus  population  of  Europe  coming  to  assist 
in  the  destruction  of  the  forests  and  transplanting 
civilization  into  its  darkest  recesses ;  when  I  re 
member  that  these  extraordinary  changes  have 
all  taken  place  within  the  short  period  of  twenty 
years,  T  pause  with  wonder  and  can  scarcely 
believe  the  *eality." 

But  these  twenty  years  were  scarcely  less 
eventful  for  him  than  they  were  for  the  nation. 
After  a  journey  of  twelve  days,  he  arrived  at 
Louisville,  in  Kentucky,  where  he  settled,  with 
a  promising  prospect  of  business,  but  which 
had  an  unprosperous  outcome  in  the  end.  The 
truth  is  that  he  was  soon  so  absorbed  in  his 
studies  of  nature,  that  he  was  apt  to  leave 
the  management  of  his  affairs  to  others,  who 
failed  to  give  to  them  the  care  which  the  pre 
carious  nature  of  all  frontier  trading  requires. 
His  enterprises  at  Louisville  failed  disastrously, 
but  enough  means  were  left  him  to  enable  him 
to  remove  to  Henderson,  Ky.,  where  he  put 
up  a  mill  and  engaged  in  other  ventures,  but 
with  equal  want  of  success  (1810).  He  became 
in  fact,  wherever  he  went,  so  addicted  to  excur 
sions  in  the  canebrakes  and  forests  that  little 
time  or  thought  was  left  him  for  more  prosaic 


160  John  James  Aitdubon 

occupations.  Provided  with  a  rough  leathern 
dress,  a  knapsack  that  contained  his  pencils  and 
colors,  and  with  a  good  trusty  gun  at  his  side, 
he  wandered  for  days,  and  even  months,  in 
search  of  animals  to  describe  and  paint.  At 
one  time  we  find  him  watchino-  for  hours  in  the 

O 

tangled  canebrakes,  where  some  shy  songster 
is  busily  rearing  her  brood  ;  at  another,  he  is 
seen  scaling  the  almost  inaccessible  height 
where  the  eagle  hovers  over  its  rocky  nest ; 
now  he  is  floating  in  a  frail  skiff  down  the 
rushing  tide  of  the  Mississippi,  and  is  carried 
on  he  knows  not  whither  by  the  flood  ;  then 
the  jealous  Indian  prowls  about  his  lonely  path, 
or  lurks  beneath  the  tree  on  which  he  sleeps, 
waiting  for  an  opportunity  to  put  an  end  to 
his  life  and  his  uncomprehended  labors  together ; 
here  he  begs  shelter  and  food  in  some  lonely 
log  cabin  of  the  frontiers  ;  and  there  he  wanders 
hopelessly  through  interminable  pine-barrens, 
while  hunger,  heat  and  thirst,  and  insects  and 
wild  beasts  beleaguer  his  steps  like  so  many 
persecuting  spirits.  But  wherever  he  is,  what 
ever  lot  betides,  the  same  high  genial  enthu 
siasm  warms  him,  the  same  unfaltering  purpose 
sustains  and  fortifies  his  soul. 

In    the    course    of   his    excursions,  Audubon 
was  among  the  first  to  explore  those  rich  West- 


John  James  Audubon  161 

ern  Territories,  which  have  since  become  pop 
ulous  States,  and  the  homes  of  an  enterprising 
civilization.  It  was  only  a  little  while  before 
his  visit  that  Lewis  and  Clarke,  under  the  auspices 
and  at  the  expense  of  the  Federal  Government, 
had  succeeded  in  penetrating  the  forests  and 
wastes  of  the  great  Northwest  (1805-7).  With 
some  of  the  members  of  their  party  he  made 
acquaintance,  and  from  them  he  doubtless 
learned  a  great  deal  as  to  the  various  trails  of 
the  wilds,  the  methods  of  reaching  them  and  of 
overcoming  their  difficulties.  He  was,  indeed, 
only  a  few  steps  behind  the  famous  Daniel 
Boone,  the  greatest  of  Indian  fighters,  at  a  time 
when  Kentucky  was  called  tl  the  dark  and 
bloody  ground,"  and  a  pioneer  of  the  advanc 
ing  settlers,  seemingly  against  his  will,  as  he  is 
reported  to  have  complained  that  a  county  was 
always  too  thickly  settled  when  there  was  a 
neighbor  within  twenty  miles.  Audubon  met 
with  Boone  many  times,  when  they  had  long 
and  serious  talks  of  their  respective  adventures 
in  the  woods  (1812). 

Some  of  these  Audubon  tells  us  with  great 
vivacity  in  his  books.  At  one  time,  when  he 
was  returning  home  across  the  barrens  of  Ken 
tucky,  he  remarked  a  sudden  and  strange  dark 
ness  in  the  western  horizon.  He  supposed 


1 62  John  James  Audition 

at  first  it  might  be  a  coming  storm  of  thunder 
and  rain,  as  he  heard  the  rumbling  of  what 
seemed  a  violent  tornado.  He  spurred  his 
horse,  with  the  view  of  galloping  to  some  place 
of  shelter,  when  the  animal,  more  sagacious 
than  his  rider,  refused  to  go  on,  or  rather  put 
his  feet  slowly  one  before  the  other,  as  if  he 
were  feeling  his  way  upon  a  smooth  bit  of  ice. 
He  dismounted,  when  his  steed  fell  to  groaning, 
piteously ;  all  the  shrubs  and  trees  began  to 
move  from  their  very  roots,  and  the  ground 
rose  and  sank  in  successive  furrows.  It  was  an 
earthquake ;  one,  as  he  afterwards  ascertained, 
that  spread  over  the  whole  State  of  Kentucky, 
and  lasted,  at  intervals,  for  nearly  two  weeks. 
"  Who  can  describe,"  he  says,  "  the  sensation  I 
experienced,  when  rocking  on  my  horse  and 
moved  to  and  fro  like  a  child  in  the  cradle,  and 
expecting  the  ground  every  moment  to  open 
into  an  abyss  that  would  engulf  me  and  all 
around  ? "  Again,  after  fording  a  creek  and 
about  entering  upon  some  bottom  lands,  he  dis 
covered  a  heavy  thickness  in  the  atmos 
phere  and  apprehended  another  earthquake  ; 
but  his  horse  did  not  stop  as  before,  or  ex 
hibit  any  particular  degree  of  trepidation.  In 
a  moment  a  light  breeze  began  to  agitate  the 
taller  trees,  which  gradually  increased  till 


John  James  Aiidubon  163 

branches  and  twigs  were  whirled  away,  and  the 
entire  forest  was  in  fearful  commotion.  The  no 
blest  trunks,  unable  to  stand  before  the  blast,  were 
torn  up  by  the  roots  and  rent  in  pieces.  "  Never 
can  I  forget  the  scene  presented  to  me  at  that 
moment,  when  everything  seemed  to  be  writh 
ing  in  the  wind,  and  masses  of  branches,  twigs, 
trunks,  foliage,  and  dust  moved  through  the  air 
with  extreme  velocity  and  left  nothing  behind 
but  broken  stumps  and  heaps  of  shapeless  ruins." 
It  was  one  of  those  cyclones — the  first  to  be 
described,  I  think — which  have  so  frequently 
since  produced  havoc  and  death  in  our  Western 
States.  It  is  strange  to  say  that  in  the  midst 
of  all  the  dangers  he  encountered,  he  was  but 
once  exposed  to  direct  assassination.  It  was  on 
a  prairie,  in  a  log  cabin  where  he  had  stopped 
for  the  night,  occupied  by  a  hideous-looking 
old  hag  of  a  woman,  who  took  a  fancy  to  his 
watch,  and  wanted  two  stalwart  sons,  who  came 
in  later,  to  butcher  him  as  he  slept.  They 
were  willing  enough  to  do  the  deed,  but  catch 
ing  sight  of  his  whisky-flask,  delayed  it  long 
enough  to  get  themselves  pretty  drunk,  when 
opportunely  two  belated  travelers  came  in  and 
saved  the  victim.  As  only  "  regulator  law  "  was 
acknowledged  on  the  prairies  in  those  days,  it 
is  remarked  that  miscreants  arrested  for  crimes 


164  John  James  Auditbon 

were  not  always  hung  or  killed  on  the  spot, 
but  taken  entirely  naked  to  some  nettle- swamp, 
where  they  were  tied  and  allowed  to  make 
their  escape  as  they  could. 

But  neither  hurricanes,  earthquakes,  nor  In 
dian  massacre  ever  gave  him  as  much  pain 
as  a  couple  of  Norway  rats,  who  had  made 
their  home  in  his  papers  once.  Before  one  of 
his  departures,  he  had  carefully  placed  his  draw 
ings  in  a  wooden  box,  and  handed  it  over 
to  a  friend  for  safe-keeping.  His  absence  lasted 
for  several  months,  and  when  he  returned  he 
naturally  inquired  for  the  box,  which  contained 
what  "  he  was  pleased  to  call  his  treasures." 
The  box  was  produced  and  opened,  but,  "  Oh, 
reader!"  he  exclaims,  "  feel  for  me;  a  pair 
of  hungry  rats  had  taken  possession  of  the 
whole  and  reared  a  young  family  among  the 
gnawed  bits  of  paper,  which  a  few  months  be 
fore  had  represented  more  than  a  thousand 
inhabitants  of  the  air."  ''The  burning  heat," 
says  the  noble-hearted  sufferer,  "  which  instantly 
rushed  through  my  brain  was  too  great  to  be 
endured,  without  affecting  the  whole  of  my  nerv 
ous  system.  I  slept  not  for  several  nights,  and 
the  days  passed  like  days  of  oblivion,  until  the 
animal  powers  were  recalled  into  action  through 
the  strength  of  my  constitution.  I  took  up  my 


John  James  Audubon  165 

gun,  my  note-book  and  my  pencils,  and  went 
forth  to  the  woods  as  gayly  as  if  nothing  had 
happened." 

Audubon's  main  object  at  the  outset  seems 
to  have  been  simply  to  gratify  his  taste  in  the 
capture  and  drawing  of  birds  ;  but  once,  while  in 
Louisville  (1810),  he  had  the  good  fortune  to  en 
counter  Alexander  Wilson,  the  Paisley  weaver, 
as  he  was  called,  but  who  was  no  less  an  orni 
thologist  and  a  poet, — and  his  predecessor  in 
what  was  destined  to  become  the  great  work  of 
his  life.  Wilson  came  into  his  room  by  chance 
to  solicit  a  subscription  for  an  illustrated  book 
on  the  birds  of  America,  and  the  sight  of  those 
illustrations  seems  to  have  awakened  his  ambi 
tion  to  realize  his  early  dreams.  It  is  not  known 
precisely  when  he  conceived  his  design  of  a  work 
which  should  surpass  Wilson's,  but  the  compari 
son  of  his  own  drawings  with  those  of  the  Scotch 
genius  set  him  seriously  to  thinking,  and  his 
labors  thereafter  had  a  higher  purpose  than  the 
gratification  of  the  dilettant.  At  any  rate,  from 
this  time  his  excursions  into  the  woods  were  defi 
nitely  aimed  at  the  gathering  of  materials  for 
a  great  book,  such  as  he  afterwards  achieved. 
But  he  encountered  one  most  formidable  em 
barrassment  :  the  want  of  means  for  the  support 
of  his  family.  As,  with  characteristic  generosity, 


1 66  John  James  Audubon 

he  had  surrendered  the  estate  in  France  be 
queathed  to  him  by  his  father  to  his  sisters ; 
while  his  other  property  was  rendered  entirely 
unproductive  by  the  Continental  wars  of  Napo 
leon,  and,  after  1812,  by  our  war  with  England; 
he  was  left  to  begin  his  great  life  work  without 
a  penny  in  his  pockets.  His  only  recourse  was 
to  utilize  his  accomplishments,  by  teaching  lan 
guages,  music,  drawing,  and  even  dancing  to  the 
young  men  and  maidens  of  the  river  towns  along 
the  banks  of  the  Mississippi.  In  this  strait  his 
wife  was  a  great  help  to  him,  as  the  head  of  a 
school  which  she  established  at  Bayou  Sara.  As 
most  of  the  towns  on  the  frontier  were  nests  of 
gamblers  and  horse  thieves,  neither  of  them  found 
their  occupations  very  remunerative,  and  it  was 
not  until  he  added  to  his  repertoire  the  talent  of 
portrait  painting,  that  he  was  able  to  put  aside 
something  toward  the  expenses  of  his  journeys  in 
the  wilderness.  During  one  of  his  visits  to  New 
Orleans  he  encountered  the  artists  Jarvis  and 
Vanderlyn,  who  gave  him  hints  as  to  the  use  of 
oils,  but  not  much  assistance  otherwise.  He  was 
indebted  for  greater  services  to  a  German  painter 
named  Stein,  who  instructed  him  in  the  com 
position  of  colors  and  the  handling  of  the  brush. 
His  crude  chalks  and  charcoals  were  then  dis 
carded  for  paint,  and  it  was  not  long  before  he 


John  James  Audubon  167 

was  in  considerable  demand  as  a  portrayer  of 
physiognomy.  Even  with  this  assistance  he  was 
often  reduced  to  such  a  tenuity  in  purse  that  he 
was  compelled,  when  he  wanted  a  new  pair  of 
shoes,  or  a  suit  of  Society  clothing,  or  a  belt  and 
ammunition,  to  acquire  it  by  rendering  the  hand 
some  features  of  the  dealer,  or  of  his  wife  and 
daughters,  on  canvas.  He  was  once  offered  a  job 
at  scene  painting  at  the  theatre  at  New  Orleans-, 
which  he  declined;  but  at  another  time  he  did 
not  decline  to  decorate  the  panels  of  a  steamboat 
with  scenes  from  the  shores  of  the  Mississippi. 
His  hardest  trial  in  these  efforts  was,  perhaps,  the 
teaching  of  a  dancing  school  near  Natchez,  when 
he  both  played  the  violin  and  set  the  steps,  but 
not  being  familiar  with  "  figures,"  got  into  some 
deplorable  entanglements  of  the  sexes.  For  a 
short  time  he  was  the  superintendent  of  a  museum 
in  Cincinnati,  where  he  gained  little  or  nothing, 
although  he  incurred  liabilities  for  debts  for  which 
he  was  afterwards  prosecuted  and  compelled  to 
borrow  money  to  escape  arrest. 

It  was  about  this  time  (1824)  that  he  visited 
Philadelphia,  where  Sully,  the  artist,  approved  his 
work,  and  he  met  with  the  Prince  of  Musignano, 
son  of  Lucien  and  nephew  of  Napoleon  Buona 
parte, — himself  a  naturalist,  engaged  on  a  book  of 
American  birds, — who  highly  commended  what  he 


1 68  John  James  Audubon 

had  done,  and  advised  him  to  take  it  to  Europe. 
But  Lawson,  the  engraver  of  Wilson's  plates,  said 
that  it  was  almost  impossible  to  engrave  his, 
which  doused  him,  not  merely  with  cold  water, 
as  he  remarks,  but  with  a  whole  pailful  of  the 
iciest  ice.  Rembrandt  Peale,  an  artist  of  some  dis 
tinction,  and  the  father  of  artist  sons,  to  whom 
he  gave  successively  the  names  of  Tician,  Raphael, 
and  others  of  the  Italian  school,  encouraged  him 
in  his  despondency,  and  he  recovered  confidence 
to  go  back  to  the  West  to  resume  his  wander 
ings  in  the  wilds. 

Audubon's  first  visit  to  England  was,  under 
the  circumstances,  as  audacious  and  hopeless 
an  enterprise  as  ever  entered  into  the  head  of 
any  sanguine  speculator.  His  friends,  with  the 
exception  of  his  wife  and  children,  to  their 
credit  be  it  spoken,  regarded  the  whole  scheme 
as  crack-brained  and  hopeless.  What  he  pro 
posed  to  himself  in  thus  going  to  a  foreign 
land,  where  he  knew  not  a  soul  and  was  utterly 
unknown,  with  scarcely  a  penny  in  his  pocket 
and  no  patrons  to  fall  back  upon,  was  the  publica 
tion  of  a  work  which  would  require  the  services 
of  the  most  eminent  engravers  and  colorists, 
and  of  a  courageous  publisher  when  publishers 
were  few.  It  was  estimated  that  the  book 
would  cost  at  the  least  no  less  than  one  hun- 


John  James  Audubon  169 

dred  thousand  dollars,  to  be  raised  by  sub 
scription  of  a  thousand  dollars  each.  This  work 
was  to  be  executed,  both  as  to  the  figures 
and  the  letter-press,  on  a  scale  of  magnificence 
scarcely  before  attempted  by  any  individual,  and 
only  by  governments  having  unlimited  means  at 
command.  What  his  enthusiasm  for  his  pro 
ject  must  have  been,  and  his  confidence  in  the 
merits  of  his  drawings  and  in  his  own  energies, 
it  is  hard  for  an  indifferent  spectator  to  con 
ceive. 

He  set  sail  from  New  Orleans  on  the  26th  of 
April,  1826,  and  after  a  voyage  of  three  months 
landed  at  Liverpool  July  2Oth.  But  as  the 
vessel  in  which  he  sailed  approached  the  shores 
of  Albion,  his  ardor  seems  to  have  deserted 
him  for  a  moment,  and  he  fell  into  a  despon 
dency  which  almost  turned  him  homeward.  All 
that  he  had  to  rely  upon  in  the  way  of  assist 
ance  was  a  letter  from  one  Vincent  Nolte  to 
a  Mr.  Rathbone,  of  Liverpool,  and  letters  from 
Sully  to  Gilbert  Stuart  and  Washington  All- 
ston,  American  artists,  then  in  London.  Even 
with  these  helps  his  prospects  seemed  to  him 
so  precarious  that  he  often  wished  himself  back 
in  the  woods  or  in  the  arms  of  his  faithful 
Lucy.  He  was,  however,  at  once  cordially  re 
ceived  by  Mr.  Rathbone,  who  was  delighted 


170  John  James  Audubon 

with  his  ways,  and  introduced  him  to  Mr. 
Roscoe — a  merchant  of  literary  tastes,  whom 
Irving  has  celebrated — and  to  Lord  Stanley, 
"a  tall,  raw-boned  Scotchman,  with  frank  and 
agreeable  manners,"  who  took  a  great  interest 
in  his  schemes.  By  these  gentlemen  he  was 
also  furnished  with  letters  to  Sir  Walter  Scott, 
Sir  Humphrey  Davy,  Sir  Thomas  Lawrence, 
Hannah  More,  Miss  Edgeworth,  and  many 
other  notable  persons  who  were  afterwards  of 
use  to  him.  An  exhibition  of  his  birds  at 
Liverpool  netted  him  some  five  hundred  dol 
lars,  with  which  he  went  to  Manchester,  where 
he  failed,  and  then  to  Edinburgh  where  he  was 
far  more  successful.  At  Edinburgh  he  was  taken 
in  hand  by  Professors  Jamieson,  Selby  and  Swain- 
son,  Dr.  Knox,  Dr.  Waitt ;  McCullough,  Professor 
of  Political  Economy;  Francis  Jeffrey,  Andrew 
Combe,  Sir  Walter  Scott,  Sir  William  Jardine,  and, 
most  effective  of  all,  Christopher  North  of  the 
famous  Nodes  Ambrosiana.  His  pictures  were  not 
only  exhibited  but  he  was  made  a  member  of 
several  of  the  learned  associations,  invited  to 
the  dinners  and  receptions  of  the  most  promi 
nent  circles,  and  by  his  appearance — for  he  still 
adhered  to  his  long  hair  and  backwoodsman 
dress — he  attracted  the  stare  of  the  streets. 
Titled  ladies  solicited  his  presence  at  their 


John  James  Audubon  171 

houses  as  an  oddity,  which  he  did  not  much 
like.  Their  manners  he  thought  haughty  and 
pretentious,  and  by  no  means  as  gracious  as  he 
had  expected.  He  was  much  more  pleased  with 
those  of  Miss  O'Neil,  the  actress,  and  of  the 
company  she  had  brought  together  for  his  en 
tertainment,  consisting  mainly  of  actors  and 
musicians.  He  visited  Mrs.  Grant,  of  Laggun; 
talked  with  Lady  Mary  Clark,  aged  eighty-two, 
who  had  known  Wolfe  and  Montgomery ;  heard 
Sydney  Smith  preach,  whose  "  deep  seriousness 
and  fervor  "  he  praises,  and  saw  Sir  Edwin 
Landseer's  pictures  of  animals,  which  he  criti 
cises  with  severity  "  as  animals  of  the  cabinet 
and  not  of  the  woods."  Captain  Basil  Hall, 
who  afterwards  dissected  "  American  manners  " 
with  a  pitchfork,  became  his  especial  friend ; 
but  no  one  adopted  him  more  heartily  than 
Christopher  North,  who  wrote  about  him  in 
the  newpapers  and  in  Blackwood,  and  com 
mended  his  exhibition  in  the  highest  terms. 
"  The  hearts  of  all  who  are  capable  of  con 
ceiving  the  dangers,  difficulties  and  sacrifices  he 
must  have  encountered  and  overcome  before 
his  genius  could  embody  these  innumerable 
triumphs  '  warm  towards  him.'  '  "  The  man 
himself,"  Wilson  added,  "  is  full  of  intelligence 
and  fine  enthusiasm,  and  most  interesting  in 


172  John  James  Audubon 

his  looks  and  manners — a  perfect  gentleman, 
and  esteemed  by  all  who  know  him  for  the 
simplicity  and  frankness  of  his  nature.  In  his 
own  walk  he  is  the  greatest  artist  that  ever 
lived." 

His  exhibition  in  Edinburgh,  consisting  of  some 
four  hundred  drawings,  painted  in  water  colors, 
and  including  no  less  than  two  thousand  figures, 
covered  the  walls  of  Institution  Hall  in  the  Royal 
Society  Building  (1827),  "  and  the  effect,"  wrote 
John  Wilson,  in  a  later  number  of  Blackwoodt 
"  was  like  magic.  The  spectator  imagined  him 
self  in  the  forest.  All  were  of  the  size  of  life,  from 
the  wren  and  the  humming-bird  to  the  wild 
turkey  and  the  Bird  of  Washington.  But  what 
signified  the  mere  size  ?  The  colors  were  all  of 
life,  too — bright  as  when  borne  in  beaming  beauty 
through  the  woods.  There,  too,  were  their  atti 
tudes  and  postures,  infinite  as  they  are  assumed 
by  the  restless  creatures,  in  motion  or  rest,  in 
their  glees  and  their  gambols,  their  loves  and 
their  wars,  singing  or  caressing,  or  brooding 
or  preying,  or  tearing  one  another  to  pieces. 
The  trees,  too,  in  which  they  sat  or  sported,  all 
true  to  nature,  in  body,  branch,  spray  and  leaf; 
the  flowering  shrubs  and  the  ground-flowers,  the 
weeds  and  the  very  grass — all  American — so,  too, 
the  atmosphere  and  the  skies — all  transatlantic. 


John  James  Audubon  173 

It  was  a  wild  and  poetical  vision  of  the  heart  of 
the  New  World,  inhabited  as  yet  almost  wholly 
by  the  lovely  or  noble  creatures  that  'own 
not  man's  dominion.'  There  many  a  fantastic 
tumbler  played  his  strange  vagaries  in  the  air; 
there  many  a  cloud-cleaver  swept  the  skies  ;  there 
living  gleams  glanced  through  the  forest  glades ; 
there  meteor-like  plumage  shone  in  the  wood- 
gloom  ;  there  strange  shapes  stalked  stately  along 
the  shell-bright  shore  ;  and  there,  halcyons  all, 
fair  floaters  hung  in  the  sunshine  on  waveless 
seas.  That  all  this  wonderful  creation  should 
have  been  the  unassisted  work  of  one  man  in  his 
own  country,  wholly  unbefriended,  was  a  thought 
that  woke  towards  the  American  woodsman  feel 
ings  of  more  than  admiration,  of  the  deepest 
personal  interest."* 

As  a  consequence  of  this  favorable  apprecia 
tion,  Audubon  succeeded  in  getting  a  publisher 
for  his  "  Birds  of  America,"  a  Mr.  Lizard.  On 
the  1 9th  of  November  he  wrote  in  his  journal, 
"  Saw  to-day  the  firstproof  of  the  first  engraving 
of  my  '  American  Birds,'  and  was  much  pleased 
with  my  appearance ; "  and,  again,  December 
loth,  he  wrote,  "  My  success  in  Edinburgh  borders 
on  the  miraculous.  My  book  is  to  be  published 

*  BlackwoocPs  Edinburgh  Magazine,  1831. 


174  John  James  Audubon 

in  numbers,  containing  four  birds  in  each,  the 
size  of  life,  in  a  style  surpassing  any  now  existing, 
at  two  guineas  a  number.  The  engravings  are 
truly  beautiful."  How  many  subscriptions  he 
obtained  in  Scotland  is  not  noted,  but  he  was 
sufficiently  encouraged  by  them  to  turn  his 
attention  to  the  larger  and  more  opulent  field  of 
London  (1827). 

In  London,  fortified  by  the  approvals  of  Sir 
Walter  Scott,  Sir  David  Brewster  and  others,  he 
was  cordially  received  by  Albert  Gallatin,  the 
American  Minister ;  by  Sir  Thomas  Lawrence,  the 
idolized  portrait  painter  of  Great  Britain ;  by 
Charles  Bonaparte ;  by  J.  P.  Children,  of  the 
British  Museum,  and  many  others.  He  thinks  it 
worth  while  to  mention  that  his  book  was  "  pre 
sented  to  his  Majesty,  the  King,  who  was  pleased 
to  call  it  fine,  and  permitted  its  publication  under 
his  particular  patronage,  approbation  and  protec 
tion."  He  adds,  "The  Duchess  of  Clarence  put 
down  her  name  as  a  subscriber,  and  all  my  friends 
speak  as  if  a  mountain  of  sovereigns  had  dropped 
in  an  ample  purse — and  for  me"  By  November, 
1828,  eleven  numbers  of  the  book  had  appeared, 
containing  more  than  one  hundred  plates. 

The  truth  is  that  Audubon  led  two  lives  while 
in  England:  a  public  life,  in  which  he  shook  hands 
with  princes,  lords  and  ladies,  and  hobnobbed 


John  James  Audubon  175 

with  men  of  science  and  celebrity  ;  and  a  private 
life,  in  which,  after  working  from  sunrise  to  sun 
set  in  painting  what  are  called  pot-boilers,  he 
spent  the  evening  in  threading  the  slums  and 
alleys  to  find  buyers  for  them  among  the  Jews 
and  other  dealers.  "What  came  in  from  sub 
scriptions  and  shows  was  religiously  reserved  for 
the  great  work,"  and  only  what  he  picked  up  in 
the  shops  was  used  for  his  support.  He  alludes 
to  these  contrasted  experiences  in  his  journal 
thus :  "  I  am  feted,  feasted  and  elected  to  socie 
ties  ;  it  is  Mr.  Audubon  here  and  Mr.  Audubon 
there,  and  I  only  hope  Mr.  Audubon  will  not  be 
made  a  conceited  fool  at  last."  Then,  again, 
"  Snowing  and  blowing  as  if  the  devil  had  cut 
the  strings  of  the  bags  of  Eolus ;  what  crowds 
of  poverty-stricken  idlers,  whose  sallow  faces  and 
ragged  garments  tell  of  hunger  and  hardship — all 
worse  off  than  the  slaves  of  Louisiana — and  in 
their  homes  I  find  artists,  men  of  talent,  who  get 
but  a  scanty  meal  a  day  and  send  their  children 
forth  to  beg.  Oh  !  "  he  exclaims,  after  describing 
a  painful  case  of  this  kind,  "  oh,  that  I  were  in  my 
dear  backwoods  again !  " 

From  London  Audubon  proceeded  to  Paris, 
where  other  trials  as  well  as  other  honors 
awaited  him.  Paris,  in  1828,  was  still  the  old 
Paris  of  half-paved  dirty  streets,  without  sider 


176  John  James  Audubon 

walks,  but  with  filthy  gutters  in  the  centre, 
where  carnages,  carts,  goats,  and  pedestrians 
splashed  their  way,  while  by  night  they  were 
lighted  by  sputtering  oil-lamps  hanging  on  ropes. 
He  complains  bitterly  of  the  trouble  he  had  in 
getting  about  in  his  visits  to  patrons.  The 
famous  Cuvier  and  Geoffroy  Saint-Hilaire,  though 
rivals  in  other  respects,  were  harmonious  in  the 
attentions  they  paid  him.  Cuvier  said  that  his 
paintings  "  were  the  most  magnificent  monu 
ment  that  art  had  ever  raised  to  ornithology/' 
and  read  a  paper  on  them  to  the  Institute — of 
which  Audubon  was  made  a  member, — while  St. 
Hilaire  helped  him,  in  many  ways,  with  his  sub 
scriptions.  Among  others  to  whom  Audubon 
was  sent,  a  year  or  two  later,  was  the  great 
world- known  banker,  Rothschild,  who  was  sup 
posed  to  be  rich  enough  to  pave  his  walks  with 
gold,  and  not  miss  it  from  his  strong-box.  The 
poor  artist  presented  his  letter,  and  was  met  by 
the  question,  "  Sir,  is  this  a  letter  of  business, 
or  a  letter  of  introduction  ?  "  Audubon,  as  he 
had  not  read  it,  could  not  say ;  then  the  baron 
opened  it,  read  and  remarked,  "  This  is  a  letter 
of  introduction,  and  seems  to  call  for  my  sub 
scription  to  some  book  or  other.  I  never  sign 
my  name  to  any  subscription  list,  but  you  may 
send  in  your  work  and  I  will  pay  for  a  copy 


John  James  Audubon  177 

of  it."  Audubon  retired,  boiling  with  rage,  but 
he  sent  in  the  book,  with  an  account,  when  the 
baron  exclaimed  to  the  messenger,  "  What,  a 
hundred  pounds  for  birds  !  I  will  give  you  five 
pounds  and  not  a  farthing  more."  And  so  the 
book  went  back  to  the  publisher's  shop.  France 
was  at  that  time  poor,  in  consequence  of  the 
exhaustions  of  war,  but  still  had  men  of  less 
wealth,  but  finer  taste  and  larger  heart  than  the 
money- god,  who  liberally  furthered  a  work,  to 
which  Audubon  had  given  such  unparalleled 
diligence  and  ability. 

Audubon  returned  to  New  York  in  1830, 
where  he  renewed  his  intimacy  with  his  old 
friends,  Mitchell,  McKay,  Irving,  and  others,  and 
then  set  off  for  the  great  pine  swamps  and 
forests  of  New  Jersey  and  Pennsylvania,  spending 
several  weeks  in  them  ;  then  skirted  the  coasts 
of  Virginia  and  the  Carolinas,  and  finally 
pitched  his  headquarters  among  the  everglades 
of  Florida.  There  he  made  himself  at  home 
among  the  alligators  and  turtles  of  the  rivers, 
while  he  lived  with  the  "  Live-Oakers,"  wood 
cutters,  or  the  tortoise-catchers,  or  joined  in  the 
sports  of  the  deer-hunters ;  made  acquaintance 
with  the  coral  seekers,  whom  he  found  to  be 
a  better  sort  of  folks  than  they  are  reputed 
to  be ;  and  caught  glimpses  of  the  pirates  of  the 


178  John  James  Audubon 

Gulf.  Having  satisfied  his  curiosity,  and  finished 
his  drawings,  he  next  set  his  face  towards  a 
different  region  entirely — the  far  North.  For 
nearly  two  years  he  was  traversing  the  vast 
pine  woods  of  Maine  and  New  Brunswick,  a 
part  of  Canada,  and  the  bays  and  river-mouths 
of  ice-bound  Labrador.  He  became  as  familiar 
with  the  lumbermen,  the  eggers,  and  the  bear- 
hunters  of  these  far,  far  regions,  and  with  the 
salmon,  cod,  and  seal-fishers  of  the  Bay  of 
Fundy  and  the  Gut  of  Canso  as  he  had  been 
with  the  squatters  of  the  prairies  or  the  turtlers 
of  the  Tortugas,  and  he  painted  and  described 
them  all  with  the  same  graphic  pencil  and  pen. 
The  object  of  these  new  wanderings  was  to 
gather  matter  for  a  new  book,  which  he  had 
begun  in  1828,  and  which  he  called  the  "  Or 
nithological  Biography;  or,  An  Account  of 
the  Birds  of  the  United  States  of  America,  ac 
companied  by  a  description  of  the  objects 
represented  in  a  work  entitled  'The  B:rds  of 
America.' '  The  earlier  book,  in  folio,  had  been 
extended  to  five  volumes,  containing  some  448 
plates  and  more  than  a  thousand  figures,  life- 
size,  in  lithographic  colors  (Edinburgh,  1831- 
1839),*  but  he  was  not  yet  satisfied  with  what  he 

*  A  cheaper   edition    in   imperial   quarto  was    issued  more 
lately  in  1844. 


John  James  Audubon  179 

had  done.  A  faithful  portrayal  or  transcript  of 
the  form  and  plumage  of  his  aerial  friends  was  not 
all  that  he  desired  to  accomplish — as  if  they  had 
no  lives  of  their  own  and  no  relation  to  the  rest 
of  Nature,  sitting  forever  alone  and  melancholy, 
like  the  stock-dove  of  the  poet,  and  brooding 
over  their  own  sweet  notes.  He  wished  to 
describe  them  in  their  natural  localities  and  habi 
tudes,  as  he  had  seen  them  for  years  in  their 
sequestered  homes.  Knowing  how  they  made 
love,  mated,  and  reared  their  young;  how  each 
one  had  its  individualities  of  character  and  cus 
tom  ;  how  its  postures  and  motions  and  migra 
tions  were  as  much  a  part  of  its  history  as  its 
structure  and  hue ;  and  how  the  food  it  fed  upon, 
as  well  as  the  trees  on  which  it  built,  were 
important  elements  in  the  knowledge  of  it — he 
now  strove  to  write  of  them  in  their  peculiar 
characteristics  and  ways.  He  helped  out  his  pic 
tures  by  his  letterpress,  and  his  letterpress  by 
his  pictures,  and  by  the  combination  of  the  two 
made  us  entirely  familiar  with  the  intimate  being 
of  his  favorites.  The  work  was  accomplished  in 
six  volumes,  three  of  plates  and  three  of  descrip 
tions,  and  formed  a  whole  that  has  not  been 
surpassed  as  a  source  of  mingled  instruction  and 
interest. 

Audubon   made  no  less  than  six  voyages  to 


180  John  James  Audubon 

Europe  in  the  prosecution  of  his  many  designs, 
while  he  employed  the  intervals  in  gathering 
new  resources  from  the  woods.  He  was  enabled, 
however,  to  find  a  sort  of  permanent  home  in 
New  York  about  the  year  1838,  and  shortly 
after  his  settlement  there, — in  1842,  I  think, — he 
was  in  the  habit  of  dropping  into  the  office  of 
the  Evening  Post,  to  have  a  chat  with  Mr.  Bry 
ant,  the  poet,  whose  congenial  love  of  nature  had 
attracted  the  naturalist,  so  that  they  soon  became 
warm  friends.  Audubon's  narratives  of  his  excit 
ing  adventures  in  the  woods,  and  of  the  eminent 
persons  that  he  had  seen,  were  exceedingly 
pleasant.  He  was  fond  of  talk,  and  the  enthu 
siasm  with  which  he  regarded  anything  that 
pertained  to  his  life-long  pursuit  gave  an  unusual 
animation  to  what  he  said.  He  spoke,  of  course, 
a  great  deal  of  himself,  but  never  in  the  way  of 
egotism  or  boasting.  If  he  had  occasion  to  tell 
of  any  extraordinary,  or  seemingly  miraculous, 
exploit,  it  was  in  the  most  modest  terms  and  as 
if  anybody  might  have  accomplished  it  with  ease. 
During  one  of  these  interviews  he  kindly  in 
vited  me  to  his  house,  and  I  accepted  the  invi 
tation  with  eagerness.  Accordingly,  one  beautiful 
Sunday  morning,  I  directed  my  steps  through 
the  outskirts  of  the  city  to  an  unfrequented  road 
which  led  me  past  suburban  houses,  pleasantly 


John  James  A  it  dub  on  181 

rising  amid  their  green  groves,  and  along  the 
banks  of  the  Hudson.  A  sacred  silence  was 
brooding  everywhere,  as  if  nature,  sympathizing 
with  the  solemn  offices  of  the  day,  had  conse 
crated  an  hour  to  meditation  and  rest.  Behind 
me  lay  the  town,  with  its  masses  of  perpetual 
unquiet  life ;  before  me,  the  sloops,  with  their 
white  wings  floating  lazily  on  the  surface  of  the 
stream ;  while  all  around  were  the  green  fields 
and  the  cheering  sunshine.  Those  squads  of 
boisterous  strollers  who  usually  select  Sunday 
for  the  invasion  of  the  sylvan  solitudes,  were  not 
yet  abroad  ;  and  only  the  insects,  with  their  small 
hum,  or  the  birds,  with  their  sweet  morning 
hymns,  seemed  to  be  alive  in  the  midst  of  the 
infinite  repose. 

After  wandering  for  some  hours,  I  turned 
into  a  rustic  road  which  led  directly  down  to 
wards  the  river.  A  noble  forest  wras  planted 
on  one  side  of  it,  and  on  the  other  vast  grain- 
fields  lay  laughing  in  the  sun,  or  listening  to 
the  complacent  murmur  of  a  brook  that  stole 
along  in  the  midst  of  clumps  of  bushes  and  wild 
briars.  About  the  half-worn  path  groups  of 
cattle  loitered,  some  cropping  the  young  grass 
and  others  looking  contemplatively  towards  the 
distant  shine  of  the  stream,  which  flashed  through 
the  vista  of  trees  in  molten  bands  of  silver.  It 


1 82  John  James  Audubon 

was  such  a  scene  as  Cuyp  or  Paul  Potter  would 
have  loved  to  paint,  if  the  native  country  of 
those  artists  had  ever  furnished  them  with  so 
lovely  and  glorious  a  subject 

But  my  walk  soon  brought  a  secluded  coun 
try  -  house  into  view,  a  house  not  entirely 
adapted  to  the  nature  of  the  scenery,  yet 
simple  and  unpretending  in  its  architecture,  and 
beautifully  embowered  amid  elms  and  oaks. 
Several  graceful  fawns,  and  a  noble  elk,  were 
stalking  in  the  shade  of  the  trees,  apparently  un 
conscious  of  the  presence  of  a  few  dogs,  and 
not  caring  for  the  numerous  turkeys,  geese, 
and  other  domestic  animals  that  gobbled  and 
screamed  around  them.  Nor  did  my  own  ap 
proach  startle  the  wild,  beautiful  creatures  that 
seemed  as  docile  as  any  of  their  tame  com 
panions. 

"  Is  the  master  at  home  ? "  I  asked  of  a 
pretty  maid-servant  who  answered  my  tap  at 
the  door,  and  who  after  informing  me  that  he 
was,  led  me  into  a  room  on  the  left  side  of  the 
broad  hall.  It  was  not,  however,  a  parlor,  or 
an  ordinary  reception-room  that  I  entered,  but 
evidently  a  room  for  work.  In  one  corner 
stood  a  painter's  easel,  with  a  half-finished 
sketch  of  a  beaver  on  the  paper ;  in  the  other 
lay  the  skin  of  an  American  panther.  The 


Jo  Jin  James  Audubon  183 

antlers  of  elks  hung  upon  the  walls ;  stuffed 
birds  of  every  description  of  gay  plumage  or 
namented  the  mantelpiece  ;  and  exquisite  draw 
ings  of  field-mice,  orioles,  and  woodpeckers  were 
scattered  promiscuously  in  other  parts  of  the 
room,  across  one  end  of  which  a  long  rude 
table  was  stretched  to  hold  artist  materials, 
scraps  of  drawing-paper,  and  immense  folio  vol 
umes,  filled  with  delicious  paintings  of  birds 
taken  in  their  native  haunts. 

This,  said  I  to  myself,  is  the  studio  of  the 
naturalist,  but  hardly  had  the  thought  escaped 
me  when  the  master  himself  made  his  appear 
ance.  He  was  a  tall,  thin  man,  with  a  high, 
arched  and  serene  forehead,  and  a  bright  pene 
trating  gray  eye  ;  his  white  locks  fell  in  clusters 
upon  his  shoulders,  but  were  the  only  signs  of 
age.  for  his  form  was  erect,  and  his  step  as 
light  as  that  of  a  deer.  The  expression  of  his 
face  was  sharp,  but  noble  and  commanding,  and 
there  was  something  in  it,  partly  derived  from 
the  aquiline  nose  and  partly  from  the  shutting 
of  the  mouth,  which  made  you  think  of  the  im 
perial  eagle. 

His  greeting,  as  he  entered,  was  at  once  frank 
and  cordial,  and  showed  you  the  sincere,  true 
man.  "  How  kind  it  is,"  he  said,  with  a  slight 
French  accent,  and  in  a  pensive  tone,  "  to  come 


184  John  James  Audubon 

to  see  me ;  and  how  wise,  too,  to  leave  that 
crazy  city  !  "  He  then  shook  me  warmly  by  the 
hand.  "  Do  you  know,"  he  continued,  "how  I 
wonder  that  men  can  consent  to  swelter  and  fret 
their  lives  away  amid  those  hot  bricks  and  pesti 
lent  vapors,  when  the  woods  and  fields  are  ail  so 
near  ?  It  would  kill  me  soon  to  be  confined  in 
such  a  prison-house  ;  and  when  I  am  forced  to 
make  an  occasional  visit  there,  it  fills  me  with 
loathing  and  sadness.  Ah !  how  often,  when  I 
have  been  abroad  on  the  mountains,  has  my  heart 
risen  in  grateful  praise  to  God  that  it  was  not  my 
destiny  to  waste  and  pine  among  these  noisome 
congregations  of  the  city." 

It  was  curious  to  observe  the  influence  which 
his  life  had  exerted  upon  the  mind  and  character 
of  Audubon.  Withdrawing  him  from  the  con 
ventionalities  and  cares  of  a  more  social  condition, 
he  always  retained  the  fresh,  spontaneous,  elastic 
manner  of  a  child,  yet  his  constant  and  deep 
converse  with  the  thoughtful  mysteries  of  nature 
had  imparted  to  him  also  the  reflective  wisdom 
of  the  sage.  Whatever  came  into  his  mind  he 
uttered  with  delightful  unreserve  and  naivete; 
but  those  utterances  at  the  same  time  bore  marks 
of  keen,  original  insight  and  of  the  deepest  knowl 
edge.  Thus,  he  knew  nothing  of  the  theology  of 
the  schools,  and  cared  as  little  for  it,  because  the 


John  James  Audubon  185 

untaught  theology  of  the  woods  had  filled  his 
mind  with  a  nobler  sense  of  God  than  the  school 
men  had  ever  dreamed ;  he  knew,  too,  nothing 
of  our  politics,  and  cared  nothing  for  them,  be 
cause  to  his  simple  integrity  they  seemed  only 
frivolous  and  vain  debates  about  rights  that  none 
disputed  and  duties  that  all  fulfilled ;  and  his 
reading,  confined,  I  suspect,  mainly  to  the  neces 
sary  literature  of  his  profession,  was  neither  ex 
tensive  nor  choice,  because  he  found  in  his  own 
activity,  earnestness  and  invention  a  fountain- 
head  of  literature  abundantly  able  to  supply  all 
his  intellectual  and  spiritual  wants.  The  heroism 
and  poetry  of  his  own  life  gave  him  no  occasion 
to  learn  the  heroism  and  poetry  of  others ;  yet 
his  apparent  neglect  of  the  "  humanities  "  had 
wrought  no  hardening  or  vulgarizing  effect  upon 
his  nature,  for  his  sympathies  were  always  the 
most  delicate,  and  his  manners  soft,  gentle  and 
refined. 

It  was  impossible,  in  turning  over  the  leaves 
of  his  large  book,  or  in  looking  at  the  collection 
which  he  exhibited  at  the  Lyceum  Hall,  not  to 
imbibe  some  of  his  own  enthusiasm  for  birds. 
One  was  made  to  feel  that  they  were  in  some 
way  nearer  to  our  affections  than  any  of  the 
other  animal  tribes.  Other  animals  are  either  in 
different  or  inimical  to  us,  or  else  mere  "  servile 


1 86  John  James  Audubon 

ministers,"  while  birds  are,  for  the  most  part, 
objects  of  admiration.  Nobody  but  a  born  spe 
cialist  ever  likes  insects  or  reptiles ;  fishes  have 
always  an  unutterably  stupid  or  unsentimental 
look,  and  deserve  to  be  caught  out  of  the  dull 
element  in  which  they  live,  to  die  in  ecstacies 
in  the  oxygen  of  air ;  wild  beasts,  though  some 
times  savagely  grand  and  majestic,  excite  terror, 
while  tame  beasts,  which  we  subjugate,  we  are 
apt  to  despise  ;  but  birds  win  their  way  to  our 
hearts  and  imaginations  by  a  thousand  charms. 
They  are  mostly  lovely  in  form,  brilliant  in  color, 
and  seductively  pleasing  in  their  motions.  They 
have  such  canny  and  knowing  eyes,  and  they 
lead  such  free,  joyous,  melodious  lives  of  love. 
Their  swift  and  graceful  evolutions,  whether  alone 
or  in  flocks ;  now  darting  like  arrows  to  the  very 
gates  of  heaven,  or  outspeeding  the  wind  as  it 
curls  the  white  caps  of  the  sea,  or  anon  gather 
ing  for  their  far-off  flights  to  unknown  lands  — 
awaken  our  aspirations  as  well  as  our  thoughts, 
and  beget  a  profound  interest  in  their  mysterious 
destinies  ;  while  their  varied  songs,  profuse,  spark 
ling,  sympathetic,  and  glorious,  are  the  richest  and 
tenderest  of  nature's  voices.  Among  the  recol 
lections  of  our  childhood,  those  of  the  birds  we 
have  fed  and  cherished  are  often  the  dearest ;  and 
in  maturer  years  the  memory  of  the  country 


John  James  Audubon  187 

home  in  which  we  were  reared,  the  woods  in 
which  we  wandered,  the  fields  and  forests  where 
we  weekly  worshiped,  is  the  greener  and 
sweeter  for  the  birds.  Thus  they  are  associated 
with  the  most  charming  features  of  the  external 
world,  and  breathe  a  spell  over  the  interior  world 
of  thought.  They  are  the  poetry  of  nature,  and 
a  pervading  presence  in  poetry;  and  it  is  no 
wonder  that  since  the  time  Aristophanes  made 
them  the  vehicle  for  his  immortal  pen,  the  poets- 
laureate — Shakespeare,  Burns,  Keats,  Shelley, 
Bryant,  and  Wordsworth — have  found  in  them 
the  sources  of  their  liveliest  inspirations. 

In  spite  of  the  happiness  of  his  home  and  of 
his  surroundings  in  New  York,  Audubon  was 
hankering  secretly  to  be  off  in  the  woods  again. 
His  main  hope  was  that  he  might  be  called  to 
join  some  governmental  scientific  expedition  to 
the  extreme  West,  and  so  renew  his  intercourse 
with  the  denizens  of  the  wilds.  In  this  view  he 
had  been  to  Washington  several  times,  where  he 
made  the  acquaintance  of  General  Jackson,  whom 
he  was  said  to  resemble,  Martin  Van  Buren,  Lewis 
Cass,  Levi  Woodbury,  Benjamin  F.  Butler,  and 
of  other  officers  connected  with  the  Federal  Ad 
ministration,  and  of  Daniel  Webster,  J.  C.  Cal- 
houn,  Henry  Clay,  and  others  of  the  Senate  and 
House  of  Representatives.  He  was  successful  in 


1 88  John  James  Audnbon 

his  aims  so  far  that  he  was  permitted  to  sail  on 
the  cutter  which  was  engaged  in  the  exploration 
of  the  Gulf  of  Mexico,  and  on  which  he  visited  the 
islands  and  bays  about  Galveston,  Baratraria,  and, 
in  fact,  the  greater  part  of  the  Mexican  and  Texan 
coast.  Texas  was  at  that  time  a  separate  Repub 
lic,  under  the  Presidency  of  Sam  Houston,  having 
just  declared  her  independence  of  Mexico,  but  in 
a  rather  rude  and  chaotic  condition  as  yet.  The 
abode  of  Houston  was  a  small  log  cabin,  consist 
ing  of  two  rooms,  with  a  great  wood  fire  in  one 
of  them  and  a  table  heaped  with  papers,  while 
the  floor  was  not  only  muddy  but  filthy,  and 
strewn  about  with  trunks,  camp-beds  and  mili 
tary  accoutrements.  Houston  himself,  a  tall, 
strong-proportioned  man,  with  a  rather  scowling 
face,  and  dressed  in  a  large  gray  felt  hat,  a  fancy 
velvet  coat,  trousers  trimmed  with  broad  gold 
lace,  and  a  huge  cravat.  He  was  hospitable 
enough  to  ask  his  visitors  "  to  take  a  drink  of 
grog,"  and  to  promise  whatever  assistance  he 
could  give.  Around  the  headquarters  was  a 
melee  of  Indians  and  blackguards  of  all  kinds  and 
aspects.  Audubon  was  delighted  with  his  acqui 
sition  of  pelicans,  cormorants,  and  several  new 
animals,  and,  after  another  trip  to  England  to 
prepare  the  fourth  volume  of  his  "Ornithologic 
Biography,"  returned  to  New  York,  where  he 


John  James  Audubon  189 

settled  his  family  for  the  rest  of  his  life.  But 
he  had  long  cherished  the  desire  for  himself 
to  visit  the  great  plains  of  the  extreme  Northwest 
and  the  Rocky  Mountains,  which  he  accomplished 
a  few  years  later  (1843). 

When  Audubon  had  completed  his  ornitho 
logical  labors,  he  projected,  in  connection  with 
his  friend,  Dr.  Bachman,  the  geologist,  a  work 
of  similar  character,  on  "  The  Quadrupeds  of 
America."  Indeed,  he  had  already,  in  his  pre 
vious  wanderings,  accumulated  a  large  mass  of 
materials  which  would  have  helped  him  in  his 
design.  But,  after  one  or  two  visits  to  some  of 
his  old  haunts,  the  approach  of  age — he  was  then 
near  seventy — induced  his  friends  to  persuade 
him  to  relinquish  the  more  toilsome  and  hazard 
ous  expeditions.  A  large  part  of  the  work  was 
consequently  given  over  to  Dr.  Bachman  and  his 
own  two  sons,  who  had  inherited  much  of  his 
talent,  both  as  observers  and  colorists.  Before  the 
work  was  completed  his  over-wrought  constitution 
began  to  fail.  His  powers  of  execution  and  of 
endurance  showed  signs  of  exhaustion ;  the  bril 
liant  eye  could  no  longer  inspect  the  minute  and 
delicate  organs  of  the  smaller  animals,  and  the 
once  firm  hand  trembled  as  it  traced  its  lines. 
He  was  at  length  confined  to  his  house,  and  we 
are  told  that  a  last  bright  gleam  stole  over  his 


190  John  James  Audubon 

features  when,  a  few  hours  before  his  death,  sitting 
in  his  chair,  he  was  shown  one  of  his  earliest 
drawings.  He  died  on  the  2/th  of  January,  1851, 
sinking  gently  to  rest  as  a  child  who  composes 
himself  to  a  beautiful  sleep. 

In  writing  of  his  decease,  in  1853,  I  said 
"  that  his  countrymen  had  made  too  little  of 
his  death.  It  is  not,  perhaps,  to  be  expected 
that  the  multitude,  who  knew  little  or  nothing 
of  his  services,  should  pay  him  their  tributes  of 
gratitude  and  respect,  but  it  was  to  be  expected 
that  our  scientific  societies  and  artistic  associa 
tions  should  at  least  propose  a  monument  to 
one  who  was  so  rare  an  ornament  of  both. 
Yet  if  they  have  been  neglectful,  there  are 
those  who  will  not  be,  and  who  will  long  cause 
his  name  to  be  remembered.  In  the  failure  of 
human  memorials,  the  little  wren  will  whisper 
his  name  about  our  homesteads,  the  robin  and 
reedbird  pipe  it  from  the  meadows,  the  ring 
dove  coo  it  from  the  dewey  depths  of  the 
woods,  and  the  imperial  eagle,  on  the  mountain  - 
top,  scream  it  to  the  stars."  It  has  since  turned 
out,  however,  that  his  fellow-men  have  not  wholly 
forgotten  him.  Thirty-six  years  after  his  death, 
in  August,  1887,  at  a  meeting  of  the  New  York 
Academy  of  Sciences,  a  movement  was  begun 
for  the  proper  honoring  of  his  memory,  which, 


John  James  Aitdubon  19 \ 

under  the  auspices  and  active  efforts  of  Profes 
sors  Martin,  Eggleston,  Britton,  and  others,  cul 
minated  in  the  placing  of  a  runic  cross  over  his 
grave,  bearing  the  name  of  Audubon,  April  26, 
A.  D.  1893,  with  figures  of  his  favorite  birds  and 
animals  sculptured  on  its  sides.  It  was  properly 
assigned  to  Trinity  Cemetery,  which  adjoined  the 
home  of  his  later  years,  and  at  the  foot  of  what 
is  now  called  Audubon  Avenue.  Nor  was  it 
unfitting  that  the  care  of  it  was  given  to  that 
great  religious  corporation,  Trinity  Church,  which 
had  already  in  its  keeping  the  ashes  of  Alex 
ander  Hamilton,  of  Albert  Gallatin,  of  Commo 
dore  James  Lawrence,  of  William  Bradford,  of 
Robert  Emmet  and  Dr.  McNeven,  of  General 
Montgomery,  of  George  Frederick  Cooke  and  of 
the  Martyrs  of  the  Jersey  Prison  Ships;  a  mingled 
assembly,  all  alike  worthy,  though  not  equally 
distinguished  for  services  rendered  humanity. 
This  recognition  of  Audubon  was  late,  but  all  the 
more  honorable  in  that  it  bears  witness  of  the 
fact  that  Time,  which  rapidly  obliterates  the 
highest  and  the  fairest  fames,  has  yet  a  corner 
on  its  tablets  which  it  does  not  always  touch 
with  its  winnowing  wings,  or  touches  only  to 
waft  away  the  gathered  dust,  and  render  the 
record  more  bright  and  clear. 


WILLIAM    CULLEN    BRYANT 


WILLIAM   CULLEN  BRYANT* 


MR.  CHAIRMAN,  AND  LADIES  AND  GENTLEMEN: 

It  is  only  a  few  weeks  since  I  visited  the 
mountainous  part  of  Massachusetts  which  is  in 
cluded  in  Hampshire  county,  and  in  a  hollow 
of  whose  hills  lies  the  little  town  of  Cumming- 
ton.  It  is  a  region  of  varied  grandeur  and 
beauty.  From  the  high  places,  elevated  some 
two  thousand  feet  above  the  turbulence  of 
the  seas,  and  basking  in  the  brightest  of  skies, 
the  sight  wanders  away  far  off  to  Mounts 
Tom  and  Holyoke  on  one  side,  and  to 
Mounts  Graylock  and  Monadnock  on  the 
other,  while  the  valleys  teem  with  the  brown 
tilth  of  meadows  and  orchards,  and  the  gay 
bloom  of  flowers.  A  solitude  almost  as  to 
human  habitations,  it  is  yet  rich  everywhere 

*  Delivered  before  the  Brooklyn  Institute  of  Science  and 
Art,  on  the  3d  of  November,  1894,  the  centennial  of  Mr. 
Bryant's  birthday. 

195 


196  William   Cullen  Bryant 

in  its  appeals  to  human  sensibility,  fancy,  im 
agination  and  thought.  All  the  year  round 
Nature  there  puts  on  a  most  sumptuous  ap 
parel  —  in  the  springtime,  a  flushing  fullness 
of  greenery  and  blossom  ;  in  the  summer,  sun 
rises  and  sunsets  as  luminous  as  those  of  Italy ; 
in  the  autumn,  that  gorgeous  array  of  color, 
when  the  trees  seem  "  groups  of  giant  kings 
in  purple  and  gold,  who  guard  enchanted 
ground  ";  and  in  winter  even,  when  the  bleak 
winds  strip  the  forests,  and  oceans  of  snow 
obliterate  the  incidents  of  the  landscape,  the 
mossy  trunks  are  cased  in  purest  crystal,  and 
the  delicate  fingers  of  the  frost  weave  the 
trembling  waterdrops  into  gems,  till  the  groves 
seem  like  "  the  caverns  of  some  virgin  mine," 
where  jewels  grow,  and  "  diamonds  put  forth 
radiant  rods  and  bud  in  amethyst  and  topaz"; 
or,  like  the  portals  of  some  fairy  palace, 

"  Where  crystal  columns  send  forth  slender  shafts 
And  crossing  arches,  and  fantastic  aisles 
Wind  from  the  sight  in  brightness." 

In  the  bosom  of  this  magnificent  scenery, 
William  Cullen  Bryant,  the  earliest  of  our  poets, 
whose  name  is  indelibly  connected  with  the  rise 
and  progress  of  our  literature  from  its  begin 
nings,  as  well  as  with  the  redemption  of  our 


William  Cullen  Bryant         ^    S    197 

^  / 

nation  from  a  most  degrading  thraldom,  was 
born  one  hundred  years  ago.  One  hundred 
years  ago  !  How  the  words  go  back,  not 
only  to  his  birth,  but  to  the  very  infancy  of 
the  Republic !  It  was  the  first  year  of  the 
second  administration  of  George  Washington  as 
President.  The  central  government,  representing 
fifteen  States,  was  organized  and  installed,  but 
not  secure.  Emerging  from  a  severe  seven 
years'  war,  laden  with  debts,  and  distracted  by 
fierce  colonial  antagonisms,  the  people,  if  not 
chaotic  in  their  opinions,  were  fluctuating  and 
unsettled.  The  red  savages  of  the  frontier,  which 
was  then  in  Ohio,  were  not  more  menacing  to  our 
stability  than  the  white  savages  of  the  interior, 
unused  to  the  restraints  of  salutary  law.  Party 
feeling  rose  to  a  red  heat  of  virulence.  It  did  not 
spare  even  the  good  and  great  chief,  who  wrote 
to  a  friend  that  he  would  rather  be  dead  than 
the  holder  of  a  public  office.  The  members  of 
his  own  cabinet  were  at  swords'  drawn  as  to 
their  convictions  and  tendencies.  One  vast  fac 
tion,  with  Hamilton  at  its  head,  inclined  to  the 
monarchical  forms  of  Great  Britain,  our  late  op 
pressor  and  enemy ;  another  faction,  under  the 
lead  of  Jefferson,  admired  republican  France,  our 
late  friend  and  ally.  But  alas !  poor  France 
had  rushed  from  liberty  to  licence.  The  "  black 


198  William   Cullen  Bryant 

terror  "  of  Robespierre  and  his  accomplices,  who 
had  gone  to  the  scaffold,  had  been  succeeded 
by  the  Directory,  no  less  bloody.  French  pop 
ular  armies  menaced  nearly  all  the  States  of 
Europe ;  Burke,  Fox  and  Pitt  thundered  in  the 
British  House  of  Commons  ;  and  in  the  distance 
gloomed,  like  a  spectre,  the  Man  of  Destiny. 

It  was  a  time  of  general  turbulence,  uneasi 
ness  and  doubt.  Indeed,  we  seem  to  return 
to  the  "Dark  Ages,"  when  we  think  that  no 
steamer  had  yet  rippled  the  surface  of  our  rivers, 
much  less  beat  down  the  angry  surges  of  the 
sea ;  that  no  locomotive  had  yet  screamed  its 
triumphs  to  the  echoes  of  the  hills;  that  no 
telegraphic  or  telephonic  messages  outran  the 
winds  ;  that  no  gas  or  electric  lights  galaxied 
our  cities;  that  no  spectrum  revealed  the  inter 
nal  constitution  of  the  sun  and  the  stars ;  and 
no  slender  wire,  running  through  the  dark  cham 
bers  of  the  sea,  where  perpetual  solitude  and 
silence  brood  over  tangled  weeds  and  the  bones 
of  broken  ships,  "  whose  gold  will  never  be 
coined  and  vintages  never  drunk  "—carried  the 
heartbeats  of  nations  from  shore  to  shore. 

The  child,  whose  birth  took  place  in  these 
stormy  times,  and  amid  those  beautiful  scenes, 
like  all  good  New  Englanders,  had  the  Pilgrims 
of  the  Mayflower  for  progenitors.  He  could 


William  Cullen  Bryant  199 

trace  his  blood,  by  a  double  current,  back  to 
the  fair  Priscilla  Mullins,  who  said  to  Mr.  John 
Alden,  when  he  came  with  a  love-errand  from  the 
stout  captain,  Miles  Standish,  "  Speak  for  your 
self,  John,"  so  that  John  did  speak  for  himself, 
and  because  he  spoke  for  himself,  there  came  of 
their  union,  only  three  or  four  generations  later, 
our  two  foremost  poets,  Bryant  and  Longfellow, 
the  latter  of  whom  has  told  of  his  ancestor's 
wooing  in  such  honeymoon  verses. 

It  was  a  stalwart  stock,  indeed,  strong-limbed 
and  strong-willed.  Some  of  its  members  had 
fought  in  the  Indian  massacres  at  Hadley  and 
Deerfield  ;  some  had  taken  part  in  the  old 
French  wars,  at  Port  Royal  and  Louisburg ;  one, 
at  least,  used  his  spade  and  his  musket  at 
Bunker  Hill,  and  afterwards  at  Bennington,  Sara 
toga  and  Yorktown  ;  while  another  was  on  board 
the  Chesapeake  in  her  grapple  with  the  Shannon ; 
and  all  had  their  legends  to  tell  to  the  younger 
generations  by  the  winter  fireside.  Fight  was 
in  the  blood,  but  poetry,  too ;  for  several,  both 
males  and  females,  read  and  wrote  verses ;  and 
a  Reverend  Alexander  Keith,  a  disciple  of  John 
Knox,  brought  in  a  Scotch  strain  which  was 
ever  proverbial  for  its  double  "  love  of  saintli- 
ness  and  song." 

Of   the    immediate    parents  the  father,  Peter 


2oo  William   Cullen  Bryant 

Bryant,  was  a  country  physician,  who  shortened 
his  own  life  by  travelling  the  rough  mountain 
roads  through  wind  and  sleet  to  prolong  the 
life  of  others,  or  to  bring  new  life  into  being. 
He  was  fond  of  science  and  rhymes,  had  taught 
himself  Greek  and  Latin,  had  travelled  in  the 
footsteps  of  St.  Pierre,  whose  Paul  and  Virginia 
has  filled  little  eyes  all  over  the  globe,  and  been 
a  legislator  at  Boston,  whence  he  brought  back 
new  books  and  that  new  aspect  of  Christianity 
which  Buckminster  and  Channing  proclaimed 
with  fervid  lips.  The  mother  was  a  stately 
matron,  who  to  an  advanced  age  could  leap 
upon  her  horse  from  the  ground,  and  who,  in 
addition  to  the  usual  household  duties,  spun, 
wove  and  fashioned  all  the  clothing  of  the  family, 
while  she  taught  the  children  their  elements 
and  to  read  the  Bible.  In  the  absence  of  higher 
amusements  than  barn-raisings,  corn-husking, 
and  the  maple  sugar  camp,  that  lonely  house 
hold  found  its  amusements  in  books.  It  had  a 
small  but  well-selected  library,  nearly  every 
volume  of  which  was  read  over  and  over 
again.  By  night,  the  boys  of  the  family 
might  be  seen  stretched  on  the  floor,  with  their 
heads  toward  the  birch-bark  fire,  absorbed  in 
Pope's  Homer,  or  Spenser,  or  Milton,  and  even 
Shakespeare,  disliked  of  all  Puritans.  In  the 


William   Cullen  Bryant  201 

daytime,  fantastically  accoutered  in  meal-sacks, 
and  armed  with  cornstalks,  they  fought  over  the 
battles  of  Greeks  and  Trojans,  shouting  the 
speeches  of  Ulysses,  or  Hector,  or  Ajax ;  or  at 
other  times  roar  to  each  other  from  the  bushes 
the  strophes  and  anti-strophes  of  a  terrible  chorus 
of  Sophocles. 

One  of  these  boys,  the  second  in  age,  named 
William  Cullen  after  an  eminent  Scotch  physi 
cian,  evinced  an  early  liking  for  rhyme.  When 
a  child  of  five  or  six  years  he  added  to  the 
usual  prayers  at  his  mother's  knee  a  request 
that  God  would  enable  him  to  write  verses  that 
might  endure.  At  seven  years  of  age  he 
began  to  make  verses ;  at  ten,  wrote  a  poetical 
school  address  which  found  its  way  into  other 
schools  as  a  recitation ;  he  versified,  also,  pas 
sages  from  the  Psalms  and  Job ;  and  at  thirteen 
his  father  got  published  some  four  or  five  hun 
dred  lines,  which  were  called  "  The  Embargo." 
It  was  a  furious  onslaught  upon  Jefferson,  whose 
religious  opinions  and  commercial  policy  ranked 
him,  in  the  estimation  of  New  England  zealots, 
alongside  of  Tom  Paine  and  the  devil.  A  little 
later  he  wrote  odes  for  Fourth  of  July  celebra 
tions,  and  an  ode  to  a  strange  god  or  goddess 
called  the  Genius  of  Columbia,  who  was  in  the 
habit  of  squaring  her  fists  at  Napoleon  and  other 


202  William   Cullen  Bryant 

despots,  and  telling  them  to  come  on  if  they 
wanted  a  thrashing.  All  these  effusions  were  but 
the  pipings  of  a  callow  bird  who  had  not  yet 
found  the  secret  of  his  throat. 

It  was  not  until  after  he  had  been  sent  to 
Williams  College  (where  he  remained  but  seven 
months  owing  to  the  father's  poverty),  that  he 
learned  a  better  strain.  He  then  became  en 
amoured  of  the  Greek  poets,  their  simplicity  of 
diction,  their  harmonious  rhythms  and  vivid 
imaginativeness,  and  their  severe  austerity  of 
judgment,  and  he  made  many  translations  from 
them,  from  Anacreon,  Mimnermus,  Bion  and  the 
choruses  of  Sophocles.  Happily  for  him,  Eng 
lish  poetic  literature  was  just  then  undergoing 
an  important  change  of  form  and  spirit.  He 
had  been  trained  by  his  father  in  a  love  for 
the  writers  that  shone  and  sparkled  in  the  reign 
of  Queen  Anne.  He  admired  them  for  their 
light,  easy,  graceful  touches ;  for  their  pretty, 
affected  sentiments,  their  slashing  wit,  to  say 
nothing  of  their  sweet,  flute-like  melodies;  but 
he  learned  to  see  something  much  better  in  the 
Greeks, — in  Grey,  Cowper,  Thomson,  Burns,  and 
more  lately  in  Coleridge,  Southey  and  Words 
worth.  Those  older  men  were  artificial  and 
conventional  in  style ;  they  were  men  of  the 
town,  of  the  coffee-house  and  the  drawing-room — 


William  Cullen  Bryant  203 

who  walked  in  satin  slippers  and  dressed  in 
silken  gowns,  and  simpered  with  the  court 
beauties;  while  the  newer  men  were  children  of 
Nature,  men  of  the  woods  and  fields  and  open 
skies,  who  studied  her  moods,  her  frowns  as 
well  as  her  smiles,  and  sunk  their  plummets 
deep  in  the  common  emotions  of  the  universal 
human  heart. 

One  of  the  first  fruits  of  this  new  awakening 
was  a  poem  that  came  to  him  as  he  roamed 
in  the  dim  shadows  of  the  everlasting  woods. 
The  blue  of  the  summer  sky  had  faded  into 
autumnal  gray,  and  the  brown  earth  was  heaped 
with  decaying  leaves.  As  he  trod  the  ground 
it  gave  forth  a  hollow  sound  as  if  from  graves. 
All  through  the  vast  solitudes,  which  stretched 
interminably  over  the  continent,  one  grand 
process  of  death  was  ever  going  on.  What 
indeed,  he  asked,  is  the  earth  but  a  great  sepul 
chre  of  once  living  things,  and  what  its  skies 
and  stars  but  the  solemn  decorations  of  a  tomb? 
His  thoughts  took  shape  in  a  poem  to  which 
he  gave  the  Greek  name  of  Thanatopsis,  or  a 
View  of  Death.  It  was  extremely  sombre  in 
tone,  but  he  had  been  reading  the  Greeks, 
through  whose  lightest  music  moans  an  inef 
fable  sadness,  and  Kirke  White's  "Ode  to 
the  Rosemary,"  and  Blair's  "  Contemplation  of 


2O4  William  Cullen  Bryant 

the  Grave,"  and  perhaps  he  remembered  some 
of  Job's  lamentations.  But  the  poem  was  no 
less  original,  and  for  its  depth  and  breadth 
of  thought,  its  wealth  of  imagery,  and  its 
organ- like  roll  of  rhythm,  a  wonderful  pro 
duction. 

The  distinction  of  "  Thanatopsis  "  was  not  its 
individual  merit,  great  as  it  was,  nor  the  proof  it 
gave  of  the  breaking  away  of  a  youthful  poet 
from  all  his  former  idols,  but  in  the  historic  fact 
that  it  was  the  morning  star  of  our  poetic  dawn. 
Nothing  like  it  had  preceded  it,  nothing  led 
up  to  it.  Our  tastes  before  it  had  run  to  dog 
gerel,  sermons,  and  psalmody  of  a  nasal  twang. 
Fisher  Ames  declared  in  i8or  that  America 
had  produced  no  man  of  poetic  genius,  intimat 
ing  that  the  muses,  like  nightingales,  were  too 
delicate  to  cross  salt-water,  or  if  they  did, 
soon  moulted  and  lost  their  feathers.  Some 
years  later  Mr.  Bryant  himself  wrote  a  review 
of  "  American  Poetry,"  in  which  he  found  that 
our  Homers,  Virgils,  and  Miltons  were  named 
Joel  Barlow,  Timothy  Dwight,  and  Jonathan 
Trumbull,  whom  he  dismissed  with  a  pat  and  a 
dismal  smile.  Well !  who  now  wipes  the  merciful 
dust  from  the  "  Columbiad,"  the  "Conquest  of 
Canaan,"  the  "  Battle  of  the  Kegs,"  or  "  Hasty 
Pudding  "  ?  We  hardly  know  the  names.  Yet 


William  Cullen  Bryant  205 

"  Thanatopsis,"     amid     the     effulgence     of    the 
broader  day  it  ushered  in,  still 

"  Flames  on  the  forehead  of  our  morning  sky." 

Cullen  Bryant  was  destined  to  the  bar,  and  stu 
died  law  with  all  diligence,  save  that  his  teachers 
now  and  then  reminded  him  that  in  courts  of  jus 
tice  Blackstone's  "  Commentaries  "  were  a  higher 
authority  than  Wordsworth's  "  Lyrical  Ballads." 
But  once  equipped,  it  became  necessary  for  him 
to  engage  in  the  turmoil  and  struggle  of  the  great 
world.  His  departure  from  home  had  a  pathos 
in  it  which  is  worthy  of  note.  He  was  going  to 
settle  at  Plainfield,  a  town  on  a  neighboring  hill, 
and  he  set  out  for  his  new  domicile  on  a  bright 
December  afternoon,  near  sunset.  As  he  climbed 
the  steep  ascent,  the  big  world  grew  bigger,  and  he 
became  exceedingly  depressed.  Without  means, 
without  prospects,  and  almost  without  friends,  he 
hardly  knew  what  was  going  to  become  of  him. 
At  the  moment  a  solitary  waterfowl  passed  across 
the  crimson  folds  of  cloud,  and  he  followed  it 
with  his  eyes.  As  he  gazed  he  said  to  it : 

"  All  day  thy  wings  have  fanned 
At  that  far  height,  the  cold,  thin   atmosphere 
Yet  stoop  not  weary  to  the  welcome  land, 

Though  the  dark  night  is  near." 


206  William   Culfon  Bryant 

Then  his  simple  piety  induced  him  to  add  : 

"  There  is  a  Power  whose  care 
Teaches  thy  way  along  that  pathless  coast, 
The  desert  and  illimitable  air 

Lone  wandering,  but  not  lost." 

It  was  a  natural  inference,  which  cheered  him 
when,  applying  the  thought  to  himself,  he  said  : 

"  He  that  from  zone  to  zone 

Guides  through  the  boundless  sky  thy  certain  flight, 
In  the  long  way  that  I  must  tread  alone 

Will  lead  my  steps  aright." 

A  sublime  trust,  which  he  carried  through  life 
and  was  never  deceived. 

For  ten  years  Mr.  Bryant  practiced  law  at 
Great  Barrington,  holding  a  respectable  if  not 
distinguished  place  at  the  bar.  It  was  not  a 
calling,  however,  suited  to  his  temperament  or 
the  deeper  yearnings  of  his  mind.  He  worked 
hard  in  the  discharge  of  its  duties,  and  even 
went  so  far  as  to  "swear  off"  from  all  his  poetic 
intoxications  : 

"  I  broke  the  spell  that  held  me  long, 
The  dear,  dear  witchery  of  song, 
And  said,  the  poet's  idle  lore 
Shall  waste  my  prime  of  years  no  more." 

But  in  vain  ;  the  influences  that  awaken  the 
sensibilities  of  the  poet  were  around  him  still : 


William  Cullen  Bryant  207 

"  And  whereso'er  he  looked  the  while 
Was  Nature's  everlasting  smile." 

Pleasanter  for  him  than  the  heat  and  jargon 
of  a  small  country  court  were  the  cool  shades 
about  the  river  which  the  farmers  had  named 
from  its  color  of  green,  even  though  they  tempted 
him  to  loiter  and  dream.  Pleasanter  than  the 
drone  of  a  judge  was  the  pipe  of  the  wood- 
thrush,  when  insect  wings  were  glittering  in 
the  beams  of  the  low  sun.  Clearer  than  all  the 
cloudy  mysteries  of  jurisprudence  were  the  white 
clouds  sailing  over  the  blue  deep,  on  whose 
wings  his  fancy  wandered  to  teeming  cities ; 
across  great  oceans  breaking  on  the  coasts ;  to 
lands  of  bloom  far  off;  to  the  olive  groves  and 
vines  of  Andalusia ;  to  the  sunny  vales  of 
Italy,  and  to  the  battlefields  and  tombs  of 
Greece,  then  lifting  her  sword  against  the  Otto 
man.  Brighter  than  all  the  luminaries  of  the 
gown  were  the  new  moon,  or  the  star  of  the  Pole, 
"  beneath  whose  eye  all  deeds  of  darkness  and 
of  light  are  done,"  or  those  other  "  orbs  of 
beauty  and  spheres  of  flame,"  which  dance  away, 
away  through  the  widening  voids  of  space 
while  their  silver  voices  in  chorus  sing.  How 
could  he  walk  the  streets,  and  look  upon  that 
precipice,  which  is  called  Monument  Mountain 
— " shaggy  and  wild,  with  pinnacles  of  flint  and 


208  William   Cullen  Bryant 

many  a  hanging  crag  " — and  not  prefer  to  the 
most  learned  decisions  of  the  Bench  the  tale  of 
the  lovelorn  Indian  maiden,  who,  climbing  the 
heights,  decked  herself  with  the  sacrificial  gar 
lands  of  her  tribe,  and,  singing  old  songs  of 
love  and  death,  leaped  to  her  doom. 

The  outcome  of  this  struggle  between  Themis 
and  the  Muses  was  that  the  Muses  got  the  best  of 
it ;  his  father  having  sent  a  dozen  or  more  of  his 
poetic  offspring  to  a  little  quarterly,  called  "  The 
North  American  Review,"  printed  at  Cam 
bridge,  they  procured  him  from  the  Phi  Beta 
Kappa  of  Harvard  an  invitation  to  deliver  the 
annual  poem.  That  was  the  Olympic  laurel  of 
the  times, — and  he  read  to  them  "  The  Ages." 
It  pleased  the  learned  dons,  and  it  pleased  the 
students, —  of  whom  Ralph  Waldo  Emerson  was 
one — and  he  was  invited  to  put  it  in  print. 
He  did  so  along  with  seven  other  poems,  and 
they  made  a  small,  thin  volume  of  forty  pages. 
But  small  as  it  was,  it  was  yet  the  biggest  book  of 
its  kind  that  had  been  put  forth  on  this  side 
of  the  Atlantic. 

The  poems  it  contained  can  not  be  said 
to  have  been  of  a  popular  kind.  They  were 
not  of  the  impassioned  sort  which  Byron  had 
made  seductive,  and  which  carried  the  feelings 
away  on  turbid  surges  of  emotion ;  they  were 


William   Ciillen  Bryant  209 

not  chivalric  talcs  like  those  in  which  Scott 
had  poured  a  glamour  of  romance  over  his 
Scottish  heaths  and  highlands ;  and  they  were 
not  outbursts  of  spiritual  aspiration  like  those 
in  which  Shelley  lifts  us  to  "  an  ampler  ether,  a 
diviner  air."  They  were  very  grave  poems — 
very  calm— profoundly  meditative  and  thought 
ful  ;  and  if  affined  to  any  school,  to  that  of  the 
much  condemned  Lakers.  But  they  were  essen 
tially  American — transcripts  of  the  Hampshire 
hills  and  the  Berkshire  valleys — and  breathing  the 
fresh  life  of  a  new  continent.  The  qualities  they 
chiefly  displayed  were  these :  An  extremely 
nice,  sensitive,  loving  observation  of  nature — the 
observation  of  delighted  eyes  and  enraptured 
ears;  a  penetrative  yet  comprehensive  imagina 
tion  which  fuses  and  welds  the  sights  and  shows 
of  things  into  new  and  delicate  combinations  of 
beauty;  and  a  moralization  of  them  all  into  human 
meanings  and  human  sympathies.  Popular  they 
could  scarcely  be,  but  discerning  minds  said  of 
them,  here  are  jewels  to  be  added  to  the  treasure- 
store  of  English  literature,  and  here  is  an  author 
who  is  going  to  add  new  lustre  to  English  genius. 
Those  poems  lifted  Mr.  Bryant  at  once  to  the 
foremost  rank  in  our  poetical  heavens ;  and  fol 
lowed  as  they  were,  from  time  to  time,  by 
others  of  equal,  if  not  greater,  excellence,  he 


210  William   Cullen  Bryant 

maintained  that  rank  undisputed  to  the  end, 
not  without  rivals,  but  assuredly  without  equals, 
and  much  more,  without  a  superior. 

They  came,  too,  it  is  worthy  of  remark,  in  the 
year  1821,  which  must  ever  be  printed  in  red 
in  our  literary  calendars.  It  was  in  that  year 
that  Washington  Irving,  Cooper,  Halleck,  Dana, 
Sands,  Hillhouse,  Percival,  Miss  Sedgwick,  Chan- 
ning,  Daniel  Webster  and  Edward  Livingston, 
broke  like  stars  out  of  the  darkness.  "  Early 
voices,"  as  Bayard  Taylor  said,  which  many 
others  have  followed — voices,  perhaps,  sweeter, 
louder  and  more  varied  ;  but  we  must  never 
forget  the  forerunners  who,  in  advance  of  their 
generation,  create  their  own  audiences  and  the 
after  audiences  by  which  they  were  to  be 
judged. 

It  was  in  1825  that  Mr.  Bryant  finally  aban 
doned  the  law  and  came  to  New  York  as  "a 
literary  adventurer,"  as  he  says.  He  had  been 
enticed  by  offers  of  a  share  in  the  editorship  of 
a  new  periodical,  the  New  York  Review,  that 
had  been  projected.  It  was  a  great  and  trying 
change  for  the  child  of  the  woods  and  fields. 
New  York  City  was  not  then  the  metropolis  that 
she  is  now.  Boston  was  her  literary  and  Phila 
delphia  her  commercial  equal.  She  had  but 
one  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  people  in  all — a 


William   Cullen  Bryant  211 

twentieth  of  what  she  has  now.  Canal  Street  was 
the  northern  boundary  of  the  city  proper,  and  all 
beyond  was  forest  and  orchards,  with  a  few  scat 
tered  farm-houses.  I  remember  how  we  children 
dreaded  to  go  beyond  the  little  stream  that 
gutted  Canal  Street,  lest  we  should  be  taken  by 
the  Indians  or  a  far  more  formidable  bugaboo, 
the  press  gangs,  which  carried  children  off  to  sea. 
Greenwich  village,  now  Amos  Street,  was  a  place 
of  retreat  for  the  richer  families  during  the  visi 
tations  of  the  yellow  fever,  which  were  frequent 
and  desolating;  and  where  Barclay  Street  ferry  is 
were  shaded  shore  walks,  in  which  Jonathan 
Edwards,  a  preacher  in  Wall  Street,  still  a  place 
of  fashionable  residences,  is  said  to  have  walked 
while  he  meditated  those  questions  of  "  fate, 
foreknowledge,  foreknowledge  absolute,"  which 
Milton  made  a  favorable  diversion  of  his  dusky 
demons.  Society  was  restricted  both  in  its 
numbers  and  culture ;  its  leaders  and  lovely 
women  dwelt  about  the  Battery.  Everybody 
knew  everybody,  and  everybody  walked  in  the 
park  for  recreation  in  the  afternoons ;  for  busi 
ness  closed  early,  and  they  had  no  concerts  or 
operas  till  later,  and  only  one  theatre. 

It  was  easy  to  get  acquainted  then,  and  Mr. 
Bryant,  a  whisper  of  whose  rare  qualities  had 
preceded  him,  was  introduced  gradually  into  the 


212  William   Cullen  Bryant 

small  coteries,  first  among  the  literary  men  and 
artists — Cooper,  Verplanck,  Halleck,  Sands,  Pro 
fessor  Anderson,  Dunlop,  Morse,  Jarves,  Van- 
derlyn,  Lorenzo  de  Ponte,  the  writer  of  the 
libretto  for  Mozart's  "  Don  Giovanni " — and 
then  among  the  higher  dignitaries — President 
Duer  of  Columbia,  Chancellor  Kent,  Thomas 
Addison  Emmett.  But  he  was  very  poor  and 
very  much  alone,  with  seeds  of  consumption  in 
his  physical  system,  and  prospects  that  rather 
darkened  than  brightened  as  he  went  on.  They 
were  for  him  almost  the  old  Grub  Street  days 
over  again.  In  a  little  poem  called  "  The  Jour 
ney  of  Life  "  he  said  : 

"  The  trampled  earth  returns  a  sound  of  fear — 

A  hollow  sound  as  if  I  walked  on  tombs ; 
And  lights,  that  tell  of  cheerful  homes,  appear 
Far  off,  and  die  like  hope  amid  the  glooms." 

But  that  darkness  was  near  the  dawn.  The 
Evening  Post,  a  prosperous  evening  journal, 
which  had  been  founded  in  the  first  year  of 
the  century  by  Alexander  Hamilton  and  his 
friends,  was  in  need  of  an  assistant  editor,  and  the 
position  was  secured  for  him,  and  his  destiny  for 
the  rest  of  his  life,  or  nearly  sixty  years,  was 
thus  determined. 

Journalism,    as    to    its    prodigious    enterprise 


William   Cullen  Bryant  213 

and  activity  in  gathering  news,  was  not  known 
then.  It  was,  none  the  less,  to  some  extent,  an 
exponent  and  moulder  of  public  opinion,  and 
particularly  of  political  or  party  opinion.  With 
a  high  view  of  its  character,  Mr.  Bryant  began 
from  his  novitiate  days  to  prepare  himself  for 
the  discharge  of  its  functions.  His  political 
convictions,  since  those  student  years  when 
he  wanted  to  enlist  as  a  soldier  in  the  army  of 
Massachusetts  in  order  to  defend  the  State 
against  the  encroachments  of  the  Federal  Gov 
ernment,  or  else  set  up  an  independent  em 
pire,  had  undergone  a  radical  change.  After  the 
peace  of  1815  the  old  parties  had  disintegrated, 
and  a  period  of  quietude  followed  under  the  ad 
ministration  of  Monroe,  who  had  been  elected 
almost  unanimously,  which  was  called  the  "  era 
of  good  feeling."  It  was  a  brooding  season 
when  opinions  began  to  take  a  new  shape,  accord 
ing  to  the  new  circumstances.  More  active  in 
dustries  and  interchanges  had  been  stimulated  by 
the  peace,  and  schemes  for  the  promotion  of  them 
were  fostered.  New  England,  which  had  become 
manufacturing,  wanted  tariffs  to  shut  out  foreign 
competition ;  the  agricultural  West  wanted  high 
ways  and  canals  to  put  it  in  easier  communication 
with  the  East ;  and  the  South  clamored  for  such 
internal  improvements  as  might  expedite  its  one 


214  William   Cullen  Bryant 

great  staple  of  cotton  to  the  sea-coasts.  All  of 
them  looked  to  the  central  government  as  the 
Hercules  who  must  pull  their  wagons  out  of  the 
ruts. 

But  other  views  were  taking  possession  of  in 
quiring  minds.  Even  before  his  abandonment  of 
the  law,  Mr.  Bryant's  attention  had  been  directed 
to  economical  doctrines,  which,  wearing  a  gloss  of 
newness  on  this  side  of  the  Atlantic,  were  much  in 
favor  with  impartial  and  independent  thinkers  in 
Europe.  He  had  studied  carefully  the  treatises 
of  Adam  Smith,  Say,  Thornton,  and  Ricardo,  and 
especially  the  great  debates  in  the  British  Parlia 
ment  in  the  time  of  that  champion  of  open  com 
merce,  Huskisson.  What  he  had  learned  from 
these  sources  was  that  the  economic  movements 
of  society,  or  the  activities  by  which  its  wants 
are  supplied,  like  the  physical  movements  of 
-  nature,  are  cases  of  uniform  and  invariable  law 
which  produce  of  themselves  beneficent  results, 
if  not  artificially  resisted.  A  deeper  question, 
however,,  was  involved  than  that  of  freedom  of 
industry  and  exchange,  and  that  was  as  to  the 
rightful  function,  the  extent  and  the  limits,  of 
governmental  action  in  its  relation  to  social  phe 
nomena.  How  far  shall  it  interfere,  or  how  far 
not  interfere,  in  the  regulation  of  individual 
conduct  ?  Mr.  Bryant  was  not  long  in  arriving 


William   Cullen  Bryant  215 

at  the  answers  commonly  given  by  the  disciples 
of  Laissez-Faire — yet  with  a  difference.  "  Gov 
ernment,"  he  said,  "is  the  organ  and  representa 
tive  of  the  whole  community  to  which  it  pertains, 
and  not  of  any  class  or  fraction  of  that  commu 
nity.  Its  primary,  predominant,  almost  exclusive, 
duty  is  to  maintain  the  conditions  of  universal 
liberty  and  justice,  or  the  equilibrium  and  har 
mony  of  all  social  forces,  and  to  maintain  them 
in  such  a  way  that  the  energies  of  the  individual 
shall  be  left  to  act  and  expand  according  to  his 
own  capacities  and  his  own  judgment.  It  must 
not  undertake  enterprises  of  its  own,  either 
religious,  intellectual,  or  economical,  but  satisfy 
itself  with  securing  a  perfectly  safe  and  open  field 
for  such  enterprises  as  the  voluntary  work  of  in 
dividuals.  In  other  words,  government  is  not  a 
fraternal  or  eleemosynary  institution  erected  to 
perform  deeds  of  charity,  nor  a  commercial  com 
pany  erected  to  look  after,  to  foster,  nurse  and 
coddle,  particular  lines  of  business ;  it  is  a  strictly 
juridical  institution,  whose  supreme  purpose  is 
to  uphold  liberty,  justice,  and  order,  and  nothing 
more." 

On  this  theory  of  the  State,  Mr.  Bryant 
contended,  our  polity  as  a  nation  was  distinc 
tively  founded,  and  we  must  either  give  up 
our  pretensions  to  democracy  or  carry  them 


216  William   Cullcn  Bryant 

out  to  their  logical  and  practicable  results  with 
manly  and  consistent  courage.  He  was  the 
more  convinced  of  the  soundness  of  this  polit 
ical  philosophy,  because  it  was  at  one  with  his 
moral  instincts  and  his  religious  aspirations. 
As  the  supreme  and  imperative  law  of  morality 
is  the  free  recognition  of  the  manhood  of 
man,  or  of  that  rationality,  conscience  and  free 
dom  which  are  distinguishing  characteristics  of 
the  human  being,  so  he  made  the  injunction 
of  the  Apostle  "  to  honor  all  men,"  asking  for 
yourself  nothing  as  to  rights  which  you  cannot 
Xwillingly  concede  to  all  others,  the  sum  and 
substance  of  ethics.  This  was  again  in  com 
plete  unity  of  spirit  with  the  religion  of  Christ, 
which  represents  the  Most  High  as  assuming 
the  form  of  the  human,  in  order  to  its  glorifica 
tion  in  every  partaker  of  it,  down  to  the  least 
and  lowest,  on  earth  as  in  heaven. 

It  would  be  impossible,  within  the  time  al 
lotted  me,  to  enter  into  any  detail  of  Mr. 
Bryant's  editorial  career  during  the  more  than 
fifty  years  it  covered.  That  would  be  nothing 
less  than  a  history  of  political  parties  from  the 
administration  of  Jackson  to  that  of  Hayes. 
It  is  enough,  however,  in  order  to  convey  a  fair 
general  conception  of  his  political  course,  to  say 
that  his  dominant,  unrelenting,  invariable  aim, 


William   Cullen  Bryant  217 

in  all  the  changes  of  circumstances,  and  all  the 
selfish  shiftings  of  factions,  was  to  rescue  the 
nation  from  its  two  fearful  abuses  of  the  funda 
mental  principles  of  personal  freedom. 

The  first  of  these,  the  first  to  which  I  shall 
advert — not  the  first  in  the  order  of  time — was 
its  gradual  adoption  of  what  were  called  "  the 
principles  of  protection,"  which,  however,  are  not 
principles  but  temporary  expedients  and  devices. 
Mr.  Bryant  was  an  out  and  out  advocate  of  un 
limited  commercial  intercourse  between  the  na 
tions  of  the  earth.  Not  only  his  theoretical  views 
as  to  the  proper  functions  of  governments,  but 
his  studies  of  actual  experience,  had  convinced 
him  that  every  artificial  interference  with  the 
free  choice  of  men  in  the  direction  of  their 
labor,  and  of  the  exchange  of  its  proceeds,  was 
highly  deleterious.  It  was  like  clapping  a  tour 
niquet  on  the  circulation  of  the  blood,  which 
could  only  produce  paralysis  and  disease.  It 
debased  legislation  from  its  true  aims  into  a 
scramble  for  favors,  and  so  perverted  and  de 
graded  the  struggles  of  parties  ;  it  fostered 
special  interests  and  built  up  monopolies,  and 
so  introduced  a  socialism  which,  in  its  assump 
tions,  justified  those  larger  socialisms  which 
would  make  the  State  the  manager  of  railroads, 
telegraphs,  factories ;  in  short,  a  complete  social 


218  William   Cullen  Bryant 

despotism,  annihilating  the  individual  and  all 
individual  responsibility,  discipline,  and  growth. 
Indeed,  Mr.  Bryant  was  disposed  to  trace  the 
terrible  corruptions  which  underlie  and  waste 
our  politics  to  this  substitution  of  selfish  in 
terests  for  general  principles  in  the  policy  of 
government,  and  he  warred  upon  it  without 
stop,  and  with  consuming  zeal. 

But  a  second  abuse  of  freedom — more  flagrant, 
more  repulsive  and  more  portentous — was  that 
which  converted  the  laborer  himself  into  a  subject 
of  ownership,  and  confiscated  not  merely  the 
proceeds  of  his  labor,  but  his  muscles  and  brains 
to  the  owner.  Our  Fathers  had  endeavored  to 
bring  together  under  the  same  form  of  govern 
ment  two  antagonistical  and  hostile  forms  of  society 
— slave  States,  which  were  semi-barbaric  in  their 
very  structure,  and  free  States,  which  were  an 
outgrowth  of  an  almost  extreme  free  civilization. 
Their  excuse  was  that,  at  the  outset,  they  held 
this  antagonism  to  be  merely  temporary  and 
transient.  They  supposed  that  freedom,  in  the 
exuberance  and  elasticity  of  its  energy,  would 
soon  trample  slavery  into  the  dust.  But  in 
that  they  were  mistaken.  By  consenting  to 
the  prolongation  of  the  slave  trade — a  hellish 
traffic — they  confused  and  paralyzed  the  popular 
moral  sense ;  by  allowing  representation  to  slave 


William   Cullen  Bryant  219 

numbers,  they  imparted  to  the  system  a  strong 
political  vitality;  and  by  enjoining  the  return 
of  fugitive  slaves,  they  made  everybody  a  parti- 
ccps  criminis ;  while  a  timely  mechanical  inven 
tion  rendered  the  slave  form  of  industry  one  of 
the  most  immediately  profitable  to  be  conceived. 
It  was  slavery,  then,  rather  than  freedom  that 
first  advanced.  In  the  beginning,  like  the  curl 
of  smoke  that  issued  from  the  bottle  of  the 
Afrite,  it  expanded  into  a  black  cloud  which 
veiled  the  heavens.  It  controlled  politics,  chose 
Presidents,  legislators  and  judges,  and  finally 
dictated  public  opinions.  Politicians  bent  to  it, 
trade  worshiped  it,  newspapers  defended  it, 
and  even  the  pulpit  found  Scriptural  sanction 
for  its  most  cruel  atrocities. 

Mr.  Bryant  did  not  join  with  those  sappers 
and  miners,  the  brave  Abolitionists,  when  they 
began  to  blow  their  ram's  horns  around  the 
walls  of  the  evil.  In  his  view  the  question  was 
not  one  merely  of  individual  right  and  wrong, 
but  of  two  conflicting  civilizations — the  roots 
of  both  of  which  were  deeply  planted  in  the 
soil,  whose  fibres  had  been  historically  woven 
into  our  organic  structure,  and  whose  tendrils 
stretched  far  and  wide  to  a  thousand  social  props. 
The  one  practical  and  practicable  thing  to  be 
done,  he  thought,  was  to  rescue  the  Democratic 


22O  William   Cullen  Bryant 

party,  the  predominating  party  of  the  nation,  from 
its  complicity  in  the  wrong.  In  all  the  agita 
tions  that  related  to  the  right  of  petition,  to  the 
Missouri  compromise,  to  the  Mexican  War,  to 
the  admission  of  Texas,  to  the  Wilmot  Proviso, 
etc.,  he  took  a  part,  and  devoted  to  them  his 
best  and  most  earnest  abilities.^^ 

Out  of  those  agitations  arose  the  Democratic 
Free  Soil  Party,  pledged  to  a  regeneration  of 
public  opinion.  At  the  same  time  the  old  Silver 
Gray  Whigs,  steeped  in  asphaltic  pools  of  con 
servatism,  were  transformed  into  Anti-Slavery 
Whigs,  whose  aims  coinciding  with  those  of 
the  Free  Soilists,  the  two  were  ultimately  fused 
into  one — the  great  Republican  Party.  The  plat 
form  for  New  York,  proclaiming  the  creed  which 
won  for  it  thirty  years  of  triumph,  was  written 
by  one  of  Mr.  Bryant's  staff.  Its  first  standard- 
bearer,  the  young  Pathfinder,  was  defeated ;  its 
second,  the  immortal  Lincoln,  bore  off  the  vic 
tory  ;  and  that  victory  was  the  signal  of  an 
armed  revolt  against  "  the  gentlest  sway  that 
Time  in  all  its  course  had  seen."  They  who 
rejected  it  had  known  its  touches  only,  as 
one  of  their  own  statesmen  said,  by  the  bene 
fits  it  conferred.  No,  the  pinch  was  not  there; 
it  was  given  by  the  irrepressible  anti-slavery 
sentiment. 


William   Cullen  Bryant  221 

The  collision,  impending  for  half  a  century,  had 
come ;  and  then  the  patriotic  instincts  of  the 
northern  masses  awoke,  and  the  world  saw  the 
sublimest  social  spectacle  it  had  ever  seen,  in  what 
a  distinguished  foreign  writer,  the  Count  Agenor 
de  Gasparin,  called  "  The  Uprising  of  a  Great 
People."  It  saw,  to  use  the  words  of  "  Our 
Country's  Call,"  the  men  of  the  glade  and  forest, 
sturdy  as  the  oaks  they  cleaved,  leave  their 
green  woodlands  for  the  red  fields  of  strife  ;  it 
saw  the  men  who  had  breasted  the  mountain- 
storms  stand  like  their  own  gray  cliffs  and  mock 
the  whirlwind  of  hostile  onset ;  it  saw  the  men 
who  dwell  by  our  rapid  rivers,  rush  to  the 
rescue  as  terrible  and  mighty  as  their  streams 
when  the  rain  has  swollen  them  to  torrents;  it 
saw  the  men  who  throng  our  ports,  which  open 
to  the  great  deep,  in  force  and  numbers  like 
the  waves  of  the  sea,  pour  their  overwhelming 
floods  along  the  plains  and  drown  out  cities  ; 
and  it  saw  even  the  clerk,  the  student,  the 
scholar,  turn  his  pen  into  a  sword,  and  wield 
the  flashing  blade  and  drive  the  swift  courser 
to  a  swifter  charge.  For  four  long  years 
we  looked  into  the  face  of  slaughter  with  its 
frowns  of  death.  For  four  long  years  the  air 
was  filled  with  the  clamor  of  fife  and  drum, 
with  the  tramp  of  gathering  hosts,  with  the 


222  William   Cullen  Bryant 

filing  off  of  infinite  cavalcades  to  unknown 
encounters,  with  the  awful  roar  and  earthquake 
shock  of  battle,  with  the  shout  of  victory,  with 
the  anguished  shriek  of  defeat,  with  the  wail  of 
mothers  and  sisters  and  wives  refusing  to  be 
comforted,  because  their  dear  ones  were  no 
more. 

All  through  this  fearful  conflict  Mr.  Bryant 
was  keenly  alive  to  its  duties,  its  terrors,  and  its 
sorrows.  He  did  not,  like  Pindar,  in  the  perilous 
hours  of  Salamis  and  Plateae,  devote  himself  to 
the  improvement  of  his  odes ;  or,  like  Michael 
Angelo,  hew  and  mould  the  marble  while  Rome 
was  falling;  or,  like  the  modern  Goethe,  dress 
his  Venetian  elegies  to  the  entering  tramp  of  the 
French  invader  of  his  country.  He  gave  his 
most  active  aid  in  every  way  to  the  furtherance 
of  the  national  cause  :  he  helped  to  raise  and 
equip  troops ;  he  cheered  the  soldiers  on  as  they 
plunged  into  the  black  smoke  from  which  there 
might  be  no  return  ;  he  sustained  the  hopes  of 
the  people  when  sudden  reverses  painted  a  pallor 
upon  their  cheeks;  twice  he  visited  Washington  to 
remonstrate  against  delays.  But  as  he  watched  the 
lightning  flash  of  Sherman's  sword  from  the  heights 
of  Georgia,  and  heard  the  thunder  roar  of  Grant's 
cannon  from  the  Wilderness,  it  was  not  without 
many  a  heartache  and  a  thought  of  the  hideousness 


William   Cullen  Bryant  223 

of  war,  in  the  midst  of  its  glory.  He  wrote  to  a 
friend :  "  When  I  think  of  this  great  conflict  and 
its  great  issues,  my  mind  reverts  to  the  grand 
imagery  of  the  Apocalypse — to  that  vision,  when 
the  messengers  of  God  came  down  to  do  his 
bidding,  to  reap  the  earth,  ripe  for  the  harvest, 
and  to  gather  the  spoils  of  the  vineyards ;  to  tread 
the  winepress  till  it  flows  over  with  blood,  to 
pour  out  the  phials  of  God's  judgments  upon  the 
earth,  and  turn  its  rivers  into  blood,  until  the 
great  dragon  shall  be  bound  and  cast  into  the 
bottomless  pit." 

Mr.  Bryant's  muse  was  not  entirely  silent  or 
sterile  in  those  terrible  times  of  trial,  but  its  in 
spiration  had  taken  a  curious  turn.  The  sun 
shone  as  brightly  as  before,  the  stars  still  glittered 
in  the  skies,  seed-time  and  harvest  came  in  their 
seasons ;  but  he  could  no  longer  indulge  in  com 
munion  with  the  sweet  and  gentle  ministries  of 
nature,  and  he  no  longer  stopped  to  hear  the  soft 
voices  of  the  grass,  or  the  tiny  music  that  swells 
from  "  every  moss-cup  of  the  rock  and  every 
nameless  blossom's  bell."  Every  wind  that  blew 
from  the  southwest  trembled  with  the  concus 
sions  of  deadly  battle  ;  the  red  flowers  of  the 
field  recalled  another  red  that  stained  more  dis 
tant  fields ;  and  the  dropping  leaves  of  autumn 
symboled  the  dropping  of  noble  corpses  into 


224  William   Cullen  Bryant 

nameless  graves.  Yet  the  poet  still  lived  in  the 
patriot,  and  his  imagination,  flying  from  the  pain 
ful  pressure  of  the  actual,  took  refuge  in  the  ideal 
realms  of  faery. 

It  was  then  he  wrote  the  charming  fable  of 
the  rustic  maiden  who  followed  the  brooks  about 
her  dwelling,  down  to  the  middle  chambers  of  the 
deep,  where  amid 

"Strange  growths,  the  pretty  coralline, 
The  dulse  with  crimson  leaves,  and  streaming  far 


Sea  thong  and  sea  lace- 


she  trod  the  pearly  sands,  spotted  with  silver 
shells,  and  beheld  the  many-peopled  world  of 
waters,  bewildering  in  its  vastness.  It  was  then 
he  told  us  of  "  the  Little  People  of  the  Snow," 
who  float  on  its  tiny  flakes,  yet  build  the  huge 
white  walls  and  pinnacles  that  rise  like  some  ca 
thedral  dome,  such  as  he,  the  Florentine  who  bore 
the  name  of  heaven's  most  potent  angel,  reared 
at  Rome,  or  such  as  the  unknown  builder  reared, 
the  wondrous  fane,  the  glory  of  Burgos.  It 
was  then  he  wrote  of  the  dreamy  youth  who 
visited  the  mystic  land  of  clouds  and  its  castles 
of  the  air : 

"  Vast  halls  with  golden  floors,  and  bright  alcoves, 
And  walls  of  pearl,  and  sapphire  vaults 
Besprent  with  golden  stars " 


William  Cullen  Bryant  225 

but  whose  magnificent  galleries  and  gardens  and 
terraces  are  swept  into  nothingness  by  the  first 
rude  blasts  of  the  wind. 

In  these  plays  of  fancy  even,  as  in  nearly  all  of 
Mr.  Bryant's  poems,  there  is  a  strong  tinge  of 
sadness ;  but  it  is  a  sadness  mollified  by  an 
ideal  philosophy,  which  runs  through  his  life  as 
well  as  his  poetry.  His  view  of  the  course  and 
outcome  of  that 

" great  movement  of  the  universe, 

Which  bears  so  silently  this  visible  scene 
Into  Night's  shadow,  and  the  streaming  rays 
Of  starlight " 

is  decidedly  optimistic.  When  he  looks  into 
"the  Ages,"  full  of  crime,  guilt,  folly,  and 
suffering,  he  finds  in  them  also  a  "  promise 
of  happier  days,  whose  dawn  is  nigh,"  that 

"  He  who  tames  the  elements  shall  not  live 
The  slave  of  his  own  passions :  he  whose  eye 
Unwinds  the  eternal  mazes  of  the  sky  " 

shall  yet  unwind  the  mysteries  of  his  own  des 
tiny.  That  awful  •'  Flood  of  Years,"  which 
carries  all  men,  rustic,  soldier,  artist,  lover,  young 
and  old,  for  a  moment  on  its  foaming  crest, 
and  then  drops  them  into  its  black  waters, — 


226  William   Cullen  Bryant 

which  sweeps  away  all  the  works  of  man's 
hands — battlemented  walls  and  stately  palaces, 
the  thrones  of  kings,  the  shrines  of  gods ;  yea, 
memorial  stones  overgrown  with  undecipherable 
legends, — shall  yet  flow  in  peace  around  green 
islands  where  the  flowers  never  wither,  sorrows 
are  forgotten,  and 

" the  eternal  change 

That  waits  on  growth  and  action,  shall  proceed 
With  everlasting  concord,  hand  in  hand." 

It  is  indeed  a  cheerful  philosophy  in  the  face 
of  that  Nature  which  another  poet,  Tennyson, 
tells  'us  "  red  in  tooth  and  claw  with  ravine 
shrieks  against  our  creeds/' — and  never  was  it 
more  beautifully  applied  than  in  1860,  when 
the  world  was  deploring  the  nearly  simulta 
neous  loss  of  a  large  number  of  its  prominent 
benefactors  and  celebrities — Humboldt,  Macau- 
lay,  De  Quincy,  Ritter,  Arndt,  Mrs.  Browning, 
and  Mrs.  Jameson  abroad,  and  Irving,  Prescott, 
Leslie,  Parker,  and  others  at  home.  Our  poet 
sees  them  as  "  the  constellations  of  the  early 
night,  that  made  the  darkness  glorious;"  but 
soon  he  marks  their  rays  grow  dim  upon  the 
horizon's  verge  and  sink  beyond  the  moun 
tains. 


William   Cullen  Bryant  227 

"The  great  Orion,  with  his  jeweled  belt, 
That  large-limbed  warrior  of  the  skies,  goes  down 
Into  the  gloom.     He  looks  in  vain  to  find 
The  group  of  sister  stars,  which  mothers  love 
To  show  their  wondering  babes,  the  gentle  Seven." 

In  vain  he  seeks  "  the  resplendent  cressets 
which  the  Twins  uplifted  in  their  youthful 
hands." 

"  The  streaming  tresses  of  the  Egyptian  Queen 
Spangle  the  heavens  no  more;  the  Virgin  trails 
No  more  her  glittering  garments  through  the  blue  ! 
Gone  !  all  are  gone ;  and  the  forsaken  Night 
With  all  her  winds,  in  all  her  dreary  wastes, 
Sighs  that  they  shine  upon  her  face  no  more." 

He  repines  at  the  disappearance  and  asks  if 
the  Night  must  then  grow  starless  in  her  later 
hours ;  if  no  new  sources  of  light  will  succeed 
to  those  that  have  disappeared  ?  Ah,  no  ! 
Nature  has  not  failed;  his  eyes  are  dim.  At 
that  very  hour  a  fiery  host  is  there  above. 

''Hercules,  with  flaming  mace, 
The  Lyre  with  silver  chords,  the  Swan  uppoised 
On  gleaming  wings,  the  Dolphin  gliding  on 
With  glistening  scales,  and  that  poetic  Steed 
With  beaming  mane,  whose  feet  struck  out  from  earth 
The  fount  of  Hippocrene,  and  many  more 
Fair-clustered  splendors,  with  whose  rays  the  night 
Shall  close  her  march  in  glory." 


228  William   Cullen  Bryant 

This  was  perhaps  his  highest  teaching, 
familiar  now,  but  novel  then  :  as  the  good  and 
great  go,  so  the  good  and  great  come  again. 
Evil  in  itself  is  superficial  and  evanescent.  The 
tempests  sweep  the  surface  of  the  seas,  piling  the 
wrecks  of  navies  on  its  shores,  but  only  a  little 
way  below  lies  the  vast  and  moveless  deep, 
nourishing  an  inexhaustible  life ;  the  cyclones 
tear  up  the  forests  and  prostrate  cities,  but  the 
calm,  clear  sunshine  glows  untouched  above ; 
and  so  "  the  heathen  rage  and  the  people 
imagine  a  vain  thing,"  but  inside  of  their  riots 
sits  the  supernal  Goodness  and  Wisdom,  making 
the  earth  silent  before  Him. 

At  the  close  of  the  war,  when  the  problem  of 
reconstruction  presented  difficulties  to  our  states 
men,  even  greater  than  those  which  had  arisen 
in  its  course,  Mr.  Bryant  still  gave  his  best 
wisdom  to  a  large-minded,  unresentful  solution. 
He  was  particularly  zealous  in  retrieving  the 
errors  which  had  swamped  our  finances  in  a 
Malgebolian  bog  of  paper-money.  His  corre 
spondence  with  Mr.  Chase,  the  Secretary  of  the 
Treasury,  and  his  editorial  comments,  contributed 
greatly  to  our  return  to  a  sound,  stable,  and 
enduring  condition. 

In  all  the  great  controversies  that  ensued  the 
dislocations    of  the    war,  the    Evening  Post  was 


William   Cullen  Bryant  229 

an  immense  power  for  good.  Everybody  that 
loiewTt  at  all,  knew  that  it  stood  inflexibly  for 
honesty,  justice  and  progress.  It  did  not  keep 
on  hand  a  poor  little  bundle  of  ragged  opinions, 
to  be  given  out  at  the  nod  of  a  party  leader — 
much  less,  if  that  party  leader  happened  to  be 
a  Boss  dressed  in  diamonds  and  dirty  clothes. 
Its  trumpets  never  blew  an  uncertain  sound. 
Yet  in  critical  moments,  when  the  Republic 
seemed  to  be  rushing  towards  the  billows  again, 
it  was  moderate  and  conciliatory,  while  it  was 
firm,  as  at  the  time  of  the  impeachment  of  John 
son,  and  of  the  decision  against  the  election  of 
Tilden.  No  mere  question  of  party  ascendency 
was  worth  the  awful  cost  of  a  civil  war.  The 
terrors  of  the  late  arbitrament  by  arms  rang  in 
its  ears  too  dolefully  to  allow  it  to  entertain  the 
thought  of  a  renewal  of  them.  Besides,  its  con 
fidence  in  the  methods  of  true  democracy  was 
so  strong  that  any  proposal  to  resort  to  bullets 
when  ballots  would  ultimately  suffice,  seemed  to 
it  no  less  than  treason  to  the  first  principles  of 
our  mode  of  government. 

But  he  had  learned,  in  the  course  of  time, 
another  mode  of  influencing  public  opinion, 
and  that  was  by  speech.  He  was  never  an 
orator  in  the  sense  that  Clay,  Choate,  Prentiss, 
Phillips,  and  Curtis  were  orators.  The  power 


230  William   Cullen  Bryant 

to  wield  the  passions  of  a  multitude,  as  a 
minstrel  wields  the  strings  of  his  harp,  or  the 
wind  brings  music  from  the  trees,  was  not  an 
original  gift.  I  recall  an  occasion  when  toasted 
at  a  public  dinner,  wishing  to  acknowledge  the 
compliment,  he  rose  with  trepidation,  and  after 
stammering  a  few  incoherent  words,  sat  down 
in  utter  confusion.  As  the  art  of  speaking 
well,  however,  was  a  most  useful  one,  he  re 
solved  to  overcome  his  nervousness  and  timid 
ity,  and  in  the  end  made  himself  an  attractive 
speaker,  so  much  so  that  he  got  to  be  in  de 
mand.  "  Few  occasions,"  says  Mr.  George 
Ripley,  "  were  complete  without  his  presence. 
He  was  always  the  honored  guest  of  the  even 
ing,  and  the  moment  in  which  he  was  to  be 
called  upon  to  speak  was  awaited  with  eager 
expectation.  He  was  singularly  happy  in  seiz 
ing  the  tone  of  the  company,  and  his  remarks 
were  not  only  pertinent,  but  eminently  felici 
tous.  Making  no  pretensions  to  impassioned 
eloquence,  he  was  always  impressive,  often  pa 
thetic,  and  sometimes  quietly  humorous,  with  a 
zest  and  pungency  that  touched  the  feelings  of 
his  hearers  to  the  quick.  On  more  important 
occasions,  when  the  principal  speech  was  as 
signed  to  him,  he  discharged  the  trust  with  a 
tranquil  dignity  of  manner,  a  severe  self-posses- 


William   Cullen  Bryant  231 

sion,  an  amplitude  of  knowledge  and  illust 
tion  that  invariably  won  the  admiration  of 
his  audience.  His  last  address  (that  on  Maz- 
zini)  was  a  masterpiece  of  descriptive  oratory." 
Apart  from  his  more  elaborate  eulogies  upon 
departed  friends — Irving,  Cooper,  Verplanck, 
Halleck,  and  Thomas  Cole,  alike  remarkable  for 
graceful  narrative,  and  discriminating  yet  sym 
pathetic  analyses,  Mr.  Bryant  produced  some 
thirty  or  forty  minor  discourses,  in  which  the 
originality  of  thought  is  no  less  striking  than  the 
variety  of  subject.  He  aided  by  his  advocacy 
the  foundation  of  many  of  our  most  important 
institutions — the  Academy  of  Design,  Central 
Park,  the  Mercantile  Library,  and  the  Metro 
politan  Art  Museum  ;  he  sketched  the  characters 
and  services  of  the  most  illustrious  men  of  genius, 
such  as  Shakespeare,  Goethe,  Schiller,  Scott, 
Burns,  Franklin,  Mazzini,  and  Kossuth  ;  he  dis 
cussed  important  principles  of  public  and  private 
policy,  such  as  Italian  Unity,  Negotiation  vs. 
War,  Municipal  Reform,  Freedom  of  Exchange, 
Foreign  Intervention,  the  Newspaper  Press,  Na 
tional  Honesty,  Music  in  Schools,  and  even  the 
Cultivation  of  Native  Fruits  and  Flowers.  In 
each  of  these  efforts  the  reader  will  find  some 
profound  or  suggestive  thought,  great  affluence 
of  imagery,  pertness  of  anecdote,  and  an  exquisite 


232  William   Cullen  Bryant 

grace  and  elegance  of  diction.  Mr.  Bryant's  prose 
style,  indeed,  was  always  a  model  of  simplicity, 
purity,  correctness,  animation,  and  ease.  Even 
his  daily  editorials  often  exhibited  the  dignity  of 
the  essay,  were  rich  in  literary  allusion  or  cita 
tion  and  at  times  flashed  with  wit. 

Mr.  Bryant's  real  distinction,  whatever  his 
political  services  may  have  been,  still  lay  in  the 
sphere  of  poetry.  His  earlier  contemporaries  had 
assigned  him  the  highest  rank,  and  never  after 
wards  changed  their  verdict.  Dana,  a  man  of 
profound  thought  and  clear  poetic  insight,  was 
his  lifelong  friend,  correspondent,  and  admirer. 
Irving  had  caused  his  poems  to  be  republished 
in  England,  and  rejoiced  that  they  had  won  for 
him  the  approval  of  Wilson,  Rogers,  Campbell, 
Coleridge,  and  Wordsworth.  Cooper  said  to  me 
once,  "They  may  talk  of  us,  and  praise  us  as 
they  please,  but  Bryant  is  our  great  literary 
glory."  Halleck  knew  nearly  all  his  poems  by 
heart.  So,  the  younger  generation  of  writers, 
who  had  grown  up  in  the  wake  of  his  ascend 
ant,  some  of  whom  had  risen  in  certain  lines 
to  a  greater  height,  readily  confirmed  the  older 
judgments.  At  a  reception  tendered  him  by  the 
Century  Club  on  his  seventieth  birthday,  Emer 
son  said  that  "  he  first  and  he  only  made  known 
to  mankind  our  northern  landscape — its  summer 


William   Cullen  Bryant  233 

splendor,  its  autumn  russet,  its  winter  lights  and 
glories."  "  He  has  continued  to  levy  on  all 
American  nature;  has  subsidized  every  grove 
and  monumental  mountain,  every  gleaming  water, 
those  gardens  of  the  desert — the  prairies,  every 
waterfowl  and  wood-bird,  the  evening  wind,  the 
stormy  March,  the  songs  of  the  stars — he  has 
suborned  every  one  of  these  to  speak  for  him, 
so  that  there  is  no  feature  of  day  or  night  which 
does  not  recall  the  name  of  Bryant."  His  friend 
Longfellow,  adopting  the  words  of  Dante  to  Vir 
gil,  wrote  to  him  : 

"  Tu  es  lo  mio  maestro,  e  el,  mio  autore." 

Lowell,  who  had  once  flung  a  jest  at  his  apparent 
coldness,  still  praised  his  verse  for  its  "  strength, 
its  grace,  its  sweetness,  and  its  dignity,"  and  pro 
claimed  that  his  words,  when  the  Ship  of  State 
was  threatened,  "  had  rammed  the  cannon  home 
and  edged  our  swords,  and  sent  our  boarders 
shouting."  Whittier  remarked  that  more  than  as 
master  of  our  song,  more  than  as  the  unflinching 
patriot,  was  the  spotless,  dauntless  man  to  be 
honored.  The  dear,  genial  Dr.  Holmes,  for 
whose  loss  our  eyes  are  still  moistened,  said  to  me 
once,  "  He  has  given  immortality  to  a  simple 
word,  without  prefix  or  suffix — and  that  is  Bry 
ant."  Even  the  spleeny  Poe,  who  had  few  good 


234  William   Cullen  Bryant 

words  for  anybody,  had  some  good  words  for 
him  ;  and  I  have  seen  the  younger  poet  gaze  at 
the  elder  with  those  dark,  luminous  eyes  of  his 
full  of  speechless  reverence.  But  a  greater  cause 
of  Mr.  Bryant's  continued  preeminence  than 
even  the  kindly  regards  of  his  colleagues,  was 
the  fact  that  his  poems  had  been  adopted  as 
class-books  in  our  public  schools,  and  so  be 
come  the  daily  food  of  youthful  generations. 
As  a  distinguished  lady  of  New  England  said  to 
me  lately :  "  Bryant  we  breathed  in  as  uncon 
sciously  as  we  breathed  the  air;  he  was  assim 
ilated  into  our  intellectual  being ;  and  whatever 
a  later  criticism  may  say  of  his  limitations, 
with  us  he  will  remain  the  best  forever."  Thus 
it  was  that  he  who  had  been  at  first  the  Fore 
runner,  then  the  Leader,  became  in  his  old  age 
the  Patriarch  of  our  native  literature. 

You  will  scarcely  find  in  history  the  record  of 
an  old  age  more  honored,  or  more  full  of  useful 
ness,  like  his  own  October,  "journeying  in  long 
serenity  away."  Possessed  of  ample  means,  the 
reward  of  his  own  toils,  the  owner  of  a  country 
home  and  a  city  home,  where  the  music  of  kind 
voices  was  ever  heard,  visited  by  eminent  men 
from  abroad  and  the  friend  of  many  eminent 
men  at  home,  he  alternated  his  days  between 
the  planting  of  trees,  his  professional  work  and 


William   Cullen  Bryant  235 

the  discharge  of  kind  offices.  As  the  shadows 
lengthened  he  grew  perhaps  more  serious,  but 
he  never  desponded.  A  great  domestic  calam 
ity  fell  upon  him  in  the  later  days  :  The  loss 
of  her  whose  lifelong  attachment  had  been  "  a 
poem  of  the  tenderest  rhythm,"  but  he  tempered 
the  gloom  of  his  grief  by  a  recurrence  to  stren 
uous  literary  occupations.  As  he  had  lessened 
the  horrors  of  the  Civil  War  by  a  flight  into  the 
gentle  realms  of  faery,  so  he  softened  this  per 
sonal  depression  among  the  majestic  shades  of  a 
prehistoric  age.  He  was  over  seventy-two  years 
old  when  he  began  a  translation  of  that  im 
mortal  Greek  epic  which  has  survived  all  time. 
It  was  a  task  from  which  any  scholar,  in  the 
prime  of  his  vigor,  might  have  shrunk;  but  this 
veteran  finished  it  in  six  years,  and  finished 
it  with  a  mastery  of  execution,  a  simplicity,  an 
elegance,  a  force  and  a  fire  that  makes  it,  in  my 
opinion,  the  monumental  version  of  the  English 
tongue.  It  has,  at  least,  added  to  a  brow,  al 
ready  wreathed  with  laurels,  a  crown  that  shines 
like  a  silver  moon  new  risen  on  a  golden  eve. 
Mr.  Bryant  lived  into  his  eighty- fourth  year, 
when  the  nation  had  grown  from  fifteen  to 
thirty-nine  States,  and  his  death,  in  1878,  by 
accident  and  not  infirmity,  was  deplored  over 
this  vast  expanse  as  a  general  affliction.  The 


236  William   Cullen  Bryant 

journals,  public  societies,  many  churches,  and 
thousands  of  individuals  united  in  their  expres 
sions  of  reverence  for  his  character  and  of  sor 
row  for  his  loss.  This  universality  of  interest 
was  the  more  to  be  remarked  in  that  Mr. 
Bryant,  apart  from  his  professional  function, 
was  in  no  sense  of  the  word  a  public  man. 
He  had  never  held  a  public  office,  entered  little 
into  general  society,  and  was  personally  known 
only  to  a  small  circle  of  friends.  His  private 
life  had  always  been  unusually  recluse  an  re 
tired.  He  had  fame,  but  not  notoriety ;  modest, 
gentle,  reserved,  shrinking  from  all  kinds  of  mis 
cellaneous  recognition,  and  courting  no  honors  or 
plaudits,  he  was  yet  widely  known,  and  respected 
wherever  he  was  known.  He  was  a  presence  where 
he  was  not  seen — an  influence  that  radiated  far 
beyond  his  immediate  person.  May  we  not 
compare  it  to  that  of  a  stream  which  runs  through 
the  thick  grasses  and  dead  foliage  of  a  forest, 
itself  unseen,  yet  watering  the  roots  of  mighty 
oaks,  whose  fibres  shall  furnish  "  the  armaments 
that  thunder- strike  the  walls  of  rock- built  cities." 
Or,  to  the  soft  rain  of  the  night,  whose  patter  on 
the  roof  is  scarcely  heard,  but  which  revives  the 
drooping  meads,  fills  the  dried  springs,  whence 
birds  and  cattle  slake  their  thirst,  replenishes  the 
pools,  where  the  queen  lilies  and  their  courtly 


William   Cullen  Bryant  237 

circles  of  green  leaves  ride, — and  rising  again  to 
the  clouds,  drop  down  spring  violets  and  sum 
mer  columbines  and  autumn's  glorious  glow,  and 
the  rich,  clustering  harvests  that  reward  the 
waiting  husbandman. 

Was  there  ever  a  career  at  once  more  humble 
and  noble  than  that  of  whose  interacting  influ 
ences  you  have  just  heard  an  imperfect  outline  ? 
From  his  childhood  when  he  first  whispered  his 
rude  numbers  to  the  brooks  of  the  mountain 
side,  to  the  last  conscious  hour  of  a  venerable 
age,  when  he  uttered  a  sublime  apostrophe  to 
the  genius  of  civil  and  religious  liberty,  which 
he  wished  a  possession  of  all  the  members  of 
the  human  race,  Mr.  Bryant's  intellect  had 
been  active  in  its  communion  with  the  spirit  and 
in  its  expression  of  the  forms  of  beauty,  seeing 
in  outward  nature  the  living  semblances  of  hu 
man  life,  and  in  human  life  the  seed-corn  of  an 
indefinitely  higher  development.  All  through 
the  long  interval,  which  covered  three-fourths  of 
this  loud  and  impious  Nineteenth  Century,  dash 
ing  its  mighty  way  through  the  rocky  depths  of 
old  abuse,  he  labored  quietly  in  the  furtherance 
of  its  greatest  ends,  but  in  his  own  unostentatious 
manner.  The  poet  always,  yet  always  the  citi 
zen,  the  good  American,  he  aspired  to  produce 
in  himself  and  in  others,  by  the  inner  choice  of 


238  William  Cullen  Bryant 

the  soul,  and  not  by  external  constraint,  what 
ever  was  brave,  noble,  disinterested,  tender  and 
true  in  character ;  as  the  true  source  of  what 
ever  is  just,  rightful,  humane,  and  permanent 
in  institutions.  Those  aspirations  were  never 
remitted ;  they  had  their  effects  while  he  lived, 
and  they  are  working  now  that  he  is  dead. 
It  is  sixteen  years  since  they  laid  him  under 
the  grass,  in  "  flowery  June,"  according  to  a 
wish  that  he  had  poetically  expressed  some 
fifty  years  before,  and  there,  for  we  know  not  how 
long, 

"  There  through  the  long,  long  summer  day, 

The  golden  light  shall  lie, 
And  thick  young  herbs,  and  groups  of  flowers 

Stand  in  their  beauty  by. 
The  oriole  shall  build  and  tell 
Her  love  tale  close  beside  his  cell ; 

The  idle  butterfly 

Shall  rest  him  there,  and  there  be  heard 
The  housewife  bee  and  humming  bird." 

And  though,  as  he  beautifully  expressed  it,  he 
sees  no  more  the  seasons'  glorious  show; 
though  he  hears  no  more  the  carols  of  the 
birds,  the  shouts  of  the  village  children,  or  the 
songs  of  maidens  with  fairy  laughter  blent ; 
though  "  his  part  in  all  the  pomp  that  fills  the 
circuit  of  the  summer  hills,  is  that  his  grave 


William  Cullen  Bryant  239 

is  green ;  "  there  is  a  grander  part  beyond  ;  for 
his  memory,  too,  is  green,  and  will  grow  greener 
with  the  rising  suns  and  the  falling  dews.  As  we 
have  come  together  to-day,  as  others  elsewhere 
have  come  together,  to  pour  out  our  tributes 
of  gratitude  and  admiration,  so  in  future  years 
others  will  come  together  to  cherish  his  genius 
and  his  good  deeds  as  a  priceless  national  in 
heritance. 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 
BERKELEY 

Return  to  desk  from  which  borrowed. 
This  book  is  DUE  on  the  last  date  stamped  below. 


j^JHlJlO'64  B 

•  icIC'D  LD 
REC'D  LD 

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|Feb  '60BMX  APR     81983 

rec'd  circ 

LD  21-100m-7,'52(A2528sl6)476 


1983 


0061025344 


